When passage planning, we always keep a close eye on the weather, obtaining both long and short range forecasts from various sources. These then influence our decisions about where to go and when. We choose options carefully to increase the likelihood of fair winds for a good passage.
However, the weather is not always predictable, especially over longer time periods. So, we need to be prepared for strong winds and high swell.
Escapade is a ‘blue water’ boat and is designed for longer ocean passages. She is not a fast boat, but we hope she is sturdy! But occasionally, she may need some extra help.
No one wants to be out in a serious storm, but they do sometimes catch travellers out. Depending on the wind strength and direction, and also the direction and height of the swell, there are many different tactics to try out to keep safe. These include changing the sail plan, reducing sail area, changing the direction of travel or even staying put by ‘heaving to’.
As the swell increase, the boat will tend to surf down the waves as if on a rollercoaster. Whilst this may be ‘exciting’ for some, there is also a risk of the boat surfing too quickly. Should this happen, the bow may continue into the water at the bottom of the wave which could then cause the boat to ‘pitch pole’ – flipping over. Clearly, this is not something we would want! To help minimise the risk of this happening, we need to a way to slow the boat down. One option would be to deploy a drogue.
As with anything, there are many schools of thought on this – which drogue is best, how and when to deploy it.
A standard drogue is a large parachute which is deployed into the water. When it fills with water it acts like a brake. However, inn rough swell, it can jump out of the water which then reduces its impact.
Researching the matter, we decided to buy a Jordan Series Drogue. With this type of drogue, there are many smaller parachutes. The idea being that, at any one time, most of them would be in the water.
Any drogue needs to be the right size for the boat. It was calculated that our Jordan Series Drogue would need 147 parachutes and 100m of line!
Wanting to be sure that we knew how to deploy and recover the drogue, we picked a warm and sunny day, with little wind, and went out to practise.
The drogue comes with its own storage wrap into which the parachutes and lines are secured with elastic. One end has a length of anchor chain to help it sink and the other is attached to the boat via a bridle and two substantial chain plates. When ready, we gradually fed out the drogue and watched it pay out behind us. Once out, we put the boat into gear and tried to motor forward. The drogue held us firm…a good sign.
Next job was to retrieve it. This took more time and we needed to work together to slowly winch all 147 parachutes back on board.
Once back in the marina, we had to make sure that it was thoroughly cleaned and dry before packing it away. Hopefully, not to come out again!
