A Face Plant at Speed in Big Wind

Running with the spinnaker up in good wind with a planing hull is a rush when the boat pops up out of the water and starts planing.

If the wind is too big serious damage can be done, from the simple like destroying a sail when the spinnaker is “shrimped” and wrapped around the keel, putting crew overboard, injuring the crew, breaking the mast or other damage to the boat.

Never did one like this, did once get my old boat Mostly Harmless far enough over that the spinnaker halyard ripped the Windex up.

After that when I would be talking to an attractive gal about sailing on my boat, Harold would wander over and start talking about that trip, how it looked from the other boats, how the keel almost came out of the water and the other boats thought they would need to come over and rescue us.  For some reason the gal would find a reason to not go sailing, thanks Harold wherever you are.

The folks at Quantum Racing make a TP 52 at speed look so easy in big wind.  So beautiful when things work smooth and the crew work is like a well oiled precision machine.





Thanks for your interest in boating safety.

– c / m –