New Boat 4 Sled

[sleddog]

Dramatic evidence of Hurricane Lane passing south of the Hawaiian Islands. At 0830 a.m. HST this morning, Weather Buoy 51002, anchored in 16,000 feet of water with miles of chain, apparently had Hurricane Lane pass overhead. Gusts to 93 knots were recorded and seas 25 to 32 feet were being measured as the bottom fell out of the barometer when it dropped to 28.25 inches (956 millibars).

Then, an hour later, the wind went nearly calm, 2 knots.....I'm guessing either the weather buoy was in the eye of the storm. Or the wind and seas disabled the wind anemometer which is/was 12 feet above water.



Stay tuned. Kauai not out of the Bulls Eye yet.
And here is your weather trivia. From the above wind speed and direction reports, we see the wind direction backed from the North to the West over time. Knowing Hurricane Lane was traveling in a northwesterly direction, did the center pass just north or south of weather buoy 51002?

 

[Intermission]

North.

 

[sleddog]

North.

Winner, winner, Mahi dinner. Was that a guess, or did you draw the advance of the wind's rotation around a low pressure center?

 

[Intermission]

I took some flying lessons and the associated ground school in high school, and then moved to 2500' elevation shortly after, where I see it every time a front passes.
Plus, I looked long and hard at the photograph in your post with the counter clockwise rotation plainly visible.

 

[sleddog]

Before GPS, there was LORAN. LORAN was discontinued in 2010 and transmit stations dismantled. In Alaska, the LORAN station, operated by the Coast Guard, was at Port Clarence, coincidentally where DOGBARK is currently anchored on their southbound retreat from the NW Passage.



The LORAN tower at Port Clarence was 1,350 feet and the tallest structure in Alaska. It was held upright by numerous guy wires. When the Coast Guard demolition team brought the tower down with a dynamite charge, it provided a graphic visual demonstration of "blowing the guy", a technique sometimes used to douse a spinnaker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zqj1hy9NS8

What racing yacht actually did use a dynamite charge to blow the afterguy from the spinnaker tack?

 

[Intermission]

Was it was a J boat?

 

[sleddog]

Was it was a J boat?

Was not a J Class. Good guess. Anyone?

 

[sleddog]

What racing yacht actually did use a dynamite charge to blow the afterguy from the spinnaker tack?

Two correct responses to this "geezer" question, first from Capt. Bob via phone on Oahu, and second via e-mail from Hank in the Washington Cascades. Here's Hank's summary:

I'll just venture a guess that you are talking about the 161 foot schooner GOODWILL which had some incredible
design details for the handling of their huge, 10,000 sq. foot chute. The 72 foot poles, as well as the on-deck funnel thru which the chute was snuffed were built of aluminum by Douglas Aircraft Co..Don Douglas Jr. was aboard as crew captain for the 47 aboard. This all happened in the -53 Transpac. As I recall the GOODWILL got it done in 10-1/2 days, though I remember -53 being a slow year. I was on the 40-ft gaff-rigged ketch SOUTHWIND that year. We took 20 days and were actually lucky to find the place at all, because it turned out the skipper didn't know much about celestial navigation and we were way north of where we were supposed to be.
Being soaring pilots my friend Bob Schnelker and I could see cumulus cloud formations in the distant south on day 19 and we let the skipper know of our suspicions, but he kept going. Luckily we were spotted by a Navy
subchaser (Lockheed P2V) that afternoon. They made a low fly-by over us and then headed directly south toward the distant clouds. That convinced the skipper and at 5 a.m. the next morning we reached the Molokai
Channel !!! ~Hank



And here's a classic painting of GOODWILL by marine artist Gary Miltmore. A few seconds later they "blew" the blasting cap on the pole end and letterbox dropped the spinny through a giant hoop in the leeward foremast shrouds..

 

[sleddog]

What racing yacht actually did use a dynamite charge to blow the afterguy from the spinnaker tack?

So what actually happened when the helmsman fired the explosive charge on schooner GOODWILL? In the possibility there was a MOB, a liferaft was ejected by one charge. Two more charges blew the end fittings off the 72 foot spinnaker pole, casting the huge spinnaker adrift. A fourth device fired an aircraft braking parachute drogue deep underwater....and that was just the beginning. All sails such as the balloners and staysails had to be taken down. The crew was trained in this rescue operation and were prepared to cast overboard all items that would float.

None of this did much good in the 1959 Transpac, when, with GOODWILL leading the 41 boat fleet, it was decided to tack ship rather than send a man to the pole end during the two hour jibing procedure.

With a tremendous crack the 30 foot, two ton, solid fir main topmast sheared as a running backstay hook, rated at 50 tons, straightened. The topmast, suspended 100 feet above deck, was hanging like a giant club as it swung and smashed not only against the main mast, but against the port main shrouds, making them twang like a guitar string as well as putting tremendous tension on the foretopmast.

The 55 man crew gathered at the stern while a damage control party was organized. If they didn't stop the swinging club soon, either the schooner would be totally dismasted. Or if the topmast fell, it could go right through the deck and possibly the bottom of GOODWILL's steel hull.

Gingerly, halyards were woven in a spider web around the swinging topmast. It was a terrifying experience and took the crew 12 hours, until midnight, to clean up the damage and lower the topmast club to the deck.
Overheard on deck was the exclamation, "you couldn't pay people to do this!"

Tha accident cost GOODWILL all hope of a new elapsed time record and 4 boats, CHUBASCO, CONSTELLATION, KAMILII, and MARUFFA got by. But GOODWILL's crew were determined to fight for the Barn Door Trophy award for First-to-Finish. They got the gollywobbler stitched up, and as a newly minted "ketch", started clocking hull speed again, 14 knots, passed the leaders, and again were First-to-Finish, an admirable effort in the days of "men of oak, ships of steel."

Here's the Barn Door Trophy, a 3 x 4 1/2-foot, 3 3/8-inch thick slab of Hawaiian koa wood weighing about 80 pounds and officially named the "Transpacific Yacht Club Perpetual Trophy"


How many Transpac "Barn Door" Trophies are there?
1) There's only one and could only ever be one.
2) There's two, one is on display at the St.Francis YC as you enter the club
3) There's three, one is at Avalon at the Catalina Island Yacht Club, which has never held a sailing race in its history, preferring fishing tournaments.
4) There's four, one is in the New York Yacht Club model room, one floor below where the America's Cup was once was bolted to the floor.

 

[Howard Spruit]

Glory to the big boat, but "Staghound" did in fact save her time to correct out as the winer of the 1953 Transpac!:>}

 

[sleddog]

Glory to the big boat, but "Staghound" did in fact save her time to correct out as the winer of the 1953 Transpac!:>}

Mr. Spruit is perhaps showing favoritism towards the 39 foot ketch STAGHOUND, as he assisted with her restoration several years ago. Not only did STAGHOUND win the Transpac overall in 1953



but she did it again two years later, winning overall honors in 1955 also, while averaging 7.65 knots for 13 days on a waterline of 31 feet. I call that hullspeed even if you may not.

 

[Philpott]

OMG, Skip! the stories you have inside that head of yours! And the way you are able to articulate them on paper.

Tell us the one about Princess Anne. Pretty please?

 

[AlanH]

Now THAT is sail inventory!

 

[sleddog]

Now THAT is a sail inventory!

Alan,

Not sure if you are referring to STAGHOUND, a 39 footer flying 5 sails downwind. Or GOODWILL flying 9 sails upwind. Either way, you are correct, "Now THAT is a sail inventory!"



Crabcakes here at CBC for first to correctly identify GOODWILL's nine sail inventory in the above photo.

 

[pogen]

View attachment 3694

Crabcakes here at CBC for first to correctly identify GOODWILL's nine sail inventory in the above photo.

OK, I'm going to try by memory and probably fail

main sail
main top sail
foresail
fore top sail
(mizzen?) staysail (on a ketch that's what it is)
staysail
jib
flying jib
the other flying jib that goes to the top of the foremast

Sad!

 

[pogen]

If it were bigger I'd call that staysail between the masts a 'fisherman'.

 

[DaveH]

OK, from the stern, working upwards:
Mainsail
main gaff topsail
Fore Gaff Sail
Fore Gaff topsail
Mule (triangular fisherman staysail)
Staysail
jib
flying jib
yankee

 

[sleddog]

OK, I'm going to try by memory and probably fail

main sail, main top sail, foresail, fore top sail, (mizzen?) staysail (on a ketch that's what it is)
staysail, jib, flying jib, the other flying jib that goes to the top of the foremast. If it were bigger I'd call that staysail between the masts a 'fisherman'.

Thanks, David,
With our resident schoonerman currently occupied building a cradle boat and unable to confirm, I'll go out on a bowsprit and say you win the crabcakes with Old Bay with your "close enough" naming of GOODWILL's 9 sail combination. Here is what I'd call them, back to front: main, main tops'l, fisherman, fores'l, foretop; fore-stays'l, jib, outer jib, flying jib.

Did we forget anything? No gollywobbler, moonraker, spanker, royal, rusher, driver, jigger, or spindle.

 

[AlanH]

So what do you call the "spinnaker off the mizzen" sail on Staghound? Mizzen Spinnaker?

ECIT: upon closer inspection, it appears to be a mitre cut sail so I'd go with mizzen staysail, but a really FAT one.

Bob J has a yawl now, so he's gonna need a mizzen staysail. I just like saying that phrase; "mizzen staysail". I'll have to scam a ride on the new boat just so I can say to Bob....

"Robert, let's set the mizzen staysail". ...which will be a first for me, both saying it, and actually setting one.

 

[pogen]

spanker

I think schooners don't have spankers, that is a fore-and-aft sail on the stern-most mast of a square-rigged ship, to give it some turning moment for tacking. Schooners also don't have t'gallants or st'unsails , or royals.

Another fun fact, square riggers never jibe, they 'wear ship'.

I saw for the first time the proposal for the next AC boats, damn, keel-less foiling monomarans. A long way from the boats discussed here.