Noise Levels at anchor?

Gonzo said:

This is exactly what happened. Forecast was hit & miss possible storms. Radar had one line coming through, would have taken MAYBE an hour. 30 minutes into it the whole eastern half of the state LIT up with wall to wall storms. That's when we knew we needed to take turns on watch. We were in an exposed anchorage totally unprotected. The forecasted turn of the winds was supposed to be slight and around 6am the next morning. But the weather turned. It "should" have been fine. We did our homework, we had the anchor set in 8 feet of water with 70 feet of chain out. I dropped an extra 30 up to 100 before it started.

Tom, where in the Dreaded Neuse were you?? I'd have thought you could run up a creek someplace for the night.

Soften Chines

Ah yes, one of my favorite subjects... chine slap. With 43+ years of hanging on a mooring and anchoring out most of the time, 7 years ago we “crossed over” from sail to power with a Nordic Tug 32. The NT’s have semi-displacement hulls, with a hard reverse chine from bow to stern. I’m a light sleeper, and after the first night anchored out, the chine slap bothered me so much that I had to do something. We never had this problem with our various, rounded hull sailboats. And ear plugs and more scotch was not the solution. I built a “wave slap preventer”, essentially wrapping a 4’ swimming noodle in sail material and hanging it off the bow under the chines. Effective, but a pain in the butt to deploy, embarrassing to answer questions about the bra on the bow, but also a safety issue. I also lined the inside of the hull (access from under the berth) with 4” of sound deadening foam panels. All that the foam did was soften the slap.

Like “Bendit”, I took a more dramatic route, which is to fill in the chines. I determined that an area of about 48” inches along the chine needed to be filled. I removed the gel coat, epoxy bonded in Core-Cell foam panels, and covered the area with carbon cloth, epoxy, then gel coat. The results is nearly 100% effective in reducing the chine slap. With enough wind and current, there are times where there still enough slap for me to sleep in the salon (my wife can sleep through a hurricane). In terms of an impact on performance, there is none, at least for this hull. I took pictures before and after the mods at 6, 10, and 12 knots. Wave deflection at the chine area is about the same, before and after the mods. Above 12 knots, that section is out of the water. Bottom line, for me, a lot of work, but worth the effort.

John Baczek
Puffin, NT32-266
Watch Hill, RI

ARoss said:

Gonzo said:

This is exactly what happened. Forecast was hit & miss possible storms. Radar had one line coming through, would have taken MAYBE an hour. 30 minutes into it the whole eastern half of the state LIT up with wall to wall storms. That's when we knew we needed to take turns on watch. We were in an exposed anchorage totally unprotected. The forecasted turn of the winds was supposed to be slight and around 6am the next morning. But the weather turned. It "should" have been fine. We did our homework, we had the anchor set in 8 feet of water with 70 feet of chain out. I dropped an extra 30 up to 100 before it started.

Tom, where in the Dreaded Neuse were you?? I'd have thought you could run up a creek someplace for the night.

Click to expand...

Hi Al! That was me(Bess) ! We were just east of the Cherry Branch Ferry terminal. There's a lttle nook there that is great in a southerly wind which it was all day. The winds were forecast to turn from the NE on Sunday morning and we thought we'd be out of there by then. Had the storm only been an hour long we would have moved...but it seemed at the time since we were hunkered down with 5 other boats who'd been out in weather before, that staying was the better option. We don't have radar, barely a good chart plotter and no autopilot...so our navigation is usually by the paperchart and binocular variety.

We had a chance to change our minds and hindsight being 20-20 next time faced with the same choice we will move up to Upper Broad creek.

This was one overnight. And we all know the Neuse can get choppy quick.

But the long term question is, how are the winds and waters in the Bahamas? How often would this scenario take place there? Do we want to take Skinny Dippin' there on a 6month or more cruise? How often does one bounce around at anchor in the bahamas?? And would a full displacement hull be better worse or the same? Do full displacement hulls really roll that much more than semi displacement?? Do we need to start shopping for a better performing Bahamas boat?

Besslb said:

Hi Al! That was me(Bess) ! We were just east of the Cherry Branch Ferry terminal. There's a lttle nook there that is great in a southerly wind which it was all day. The winds were forecast to turn from the NE on Sunday morning and we thought we'd be out of there by then. Had the storm only been an hour long we would have moved...but it seemed at the time since we were hunkered down with 5 other boats who'd been out in weather before, that staying was the better option. We don't have radar, barely a good chart plotter and no autopilot...so our navigation is usually by the paperchart and binocular variety.

We had a chance to change our minds and hindsight being 20-20 next time faced with the same choice we will move up to Upper Broad creek.

This was one overnight. And we all know the Neuse can get choppy quick.

But the long term question is, how are the winds and waters in the Bahamas? How often would this scenario take place there? Do we want to take Skinny Dippin' there on a 6month or more cruise? How often does one bounce around at anchor in the bahamas?? And would a full displacement hull be better worse or the same? Do full displacement hulls really roll that much more than semi displacement?? Do we need to start shopping for a better performing Bahamas boat?

Click to expand...

If your boat was hobbyhorsing in a little chop (many of our boats do)...maybe you need a little more weight in both ends. I plan on having 200 ft of 5/16 chain and at leat 100 pounds of 2 anchors forward and I have over 1500 pounds of water in tanks right near the transom.

Take a good look at your design and see if more weight in the ends might be necessary to lessen the motion.

Wherever you are...an exposed anchorage will do what that one did to yu....Bahamas or elsewhere....fix the boat the best you can....look for/plan for better anchorages...get the best CURRENT weather capability aboard your boat...get used to some motion and noise (you can because I used to be able to fall asleep quite easily in the old, old USCG helicopters...)

One thing that has been left off the table about the "Why didn't you just move?" We had been drinking most of the day. Drunk? No, but at the moment the decision had to be made to stay or run, our toxicity was one of the major factors we considered.

Puffin (what is your real name anyway?), can we see more pictures of what you did? Love to see before and after. I can't really make out what you did in your posted pics and we would seriously consider doing it too should we decide to keep SD. You could email them to me at skinnydippincary-at-aol-dot-com if you are inclined to send larger pictures.

A friend of mine is also filling in his chines on his old 34 Mainship.

We get chine slap under the V-berth...but since we sleep in the aft cabin...we don't notice it unless we go to the forward head or the galley....