Nordy knocked down to 69°

Nordhavn 52, Dirona, is mostly having a very enjoyable time on their travels. James and Jennifer came from the PNW and have a very well written and photo-documented blog at MV Dirona Recent Locations Travel Log Map

So, a few days ago with a 25-30 kn southerly blowing they were at the east end of the Wide Bay Bar, probably in 'will we or won't we' mode, but they were just a bit to close to the start of it. This bar has a high sphincter factor even in 'reasonable' conditions. You have to use current GPS waypoints obtained from the local VMR to find the channel and will have breakers on one side of you at least along 'the mad mile'. Breakers on the beam messes with your head...... I prefer 'good' conditions there, but for Dirona they are best described as 'adverse'.

Dirona was knocked down to 69.1°. Their blog entry on 8/23/2014 "Roll" describes the event, and entries before and after give further perspective. They seem calm about it now, but only wrote it up a week or so afterwards, so perhaps they were understandably not so calm at the time.

wow. on a stabilized boat no less. before that they were rolling 30 degrees both directions for quite a while. must have been a little uncomfortable.

Interesting information in light of comments from some that the vessel - the Baden - that capsized on launch in Anacortes and had vanishing stability at less than 69 degrees would be no problem since no one ever heels that much. I doubt the owners of the Dirona would agree.

Sounds like they surfed and broached. Wouldn't that have been a good time to tow something from the stern? Something that would have kept the stern from swinging out of control and keeping the vessel from gaining too much speed on the face of the waves?

There are products out there, but I've read about commercial fishermen that tow garbage cans or old tires to keep from surfing in a situation like that.

MurrayM said:

Sounds like they surfed and broached. Wouldn't that have been a good time to tow something from the stern? Something that would have kept the stern from swinging out of control and keeping the vessel from gaining too much speed on the face of the waves?

There are products out there, but I've read about commercial fishermen that tow garbage cans or old tires to keep from surfing in a situation like that.

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Surfing? No, I don't think so in this case. For this bar you are beam on to the waves for over a mile. They break in the shallow water that is on both sides of the channel. You are not in the waves, just the surf after they have broken. In good conditions on this bar the waves don't break, and then towing a drogue to stop you stern from swinging as the waves pass under you is a good idea.

Rolling over 69* would have scared the crap out of me. Those two have experienced a lot during their travels. This incident, I'm sure, will be one they remember a long time.

I've done more than 60 degrees for 3 days once...it was on a 399 icebreaker...and they just had to clean the wall of footprints as much as the floors...

Running an inlet I think they were wise turning around as quick as they did...

Drogues can be a 2 edged sword...keeping you straight in a breaking sea is great...right up to the point where you may have to turn quick. If you are truly turning 90 degrees to the wave pattern...then like here in Jersey in some inlets...a drogue can be worse than not having one for the few moments it may really help.

Thats a good reason to through bolt everything. You never know what you'll wind up hanging on!

Delfin said:

Interesting information in light of comments from some that the vessel - the Baden - that capsized on launch in Anacortes and had vanishing stability at less than 69 degrees would be no problem since no one ever heels that much.

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Yes it would be interesting.

IF anybody had said that in that thread.

Capt.Bill11 said:

Yes it would be interesting.

IF anybody had said that in that thread.

Click to expand...

Capt.Bill11 said:

So in the end it looks like if you careful, properly prepared, pick your weather and perhaps have a little luck as well, a vessel with "only" 65 degrees of stability could cross an ocean or two on its own bottom.

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Unless you are this vessel, manned by careful people, properly prepared, picking their weather and being lucky enough to get where they are. If you were this vessel, you might be dead, since "only" 65 degrees of stability might have killed you.

Yes. But That is much different than saying: "69 degrees would be no problem since no one ever heels that much."

I, nor any one else that I recall, said that "no one ever heels that much."

All I said was if you were careful in your planning and perhaps had a bit of luck you could cross an ocean with a vessel that only had 65 deg. of stability to one side.

By the way, I agree more (to a point) is obviously better when it comes to stability for true ocean crossing vessels.

I spoke with James and Jennifer whilst I was anchored up beside them down at Inskip Point (Pelican Point). This was after they had come around the top of Fraser is. I came down the inside just behind them.
I was waiting for the weather to abate a little to go out across the bar, they were going to head back up the inside to travel further north.
James did mention to me that the weather they experienced coming up was the worst they had had in all their voyaging.
Whilst he was going north with the SE trades I had been slogging into it coming south.
I have crossed this bar some 70/80 odd time over the last 20 years and my crossing 2 days later ( the day after they headed back north) rates in my top 2 worst ever.

As Brian stated the first leg coming from the inside is with beam seas and is not know as the "mad Mile" or the "washing Machine " for nothing.
The last leg is head on into the sea but over fairly shallow water. I crossed at optimum tide ( 4 hrs into the flood) and had 2.5 to 3 mt seas coming over a max depth in places of 5 mts, so you can see how it could get pretty dangerous , especially if you don't use the tides right.

I can see from James track he was not familiar with the area especially when looking at the Moon Point area.

Any how it looks like they are headed up into the Great Barrier Reef area and should have a great time.
He said they will go north for a while and then track back south and down to Tasmania.
Cheers

Can you guys post a chart of this spot?

Probably the easiest thing to do is go to Dirona's blog (link in post #1), and look for entry "Roll". Click on the date and heading above that entry (8/23/2014: 69.1 degrees) and Google map should show where they were at the time. You can then scroll around etc on the map. They were a reasonable way out from the mad mile, which you can identify from the shallow sandy area east of Inskip Point.

I'll go down to the boat a bit later today, and if I can figure out how to get a screen shot from my chartplotter I'll post it if it shows the bar any better.

Here is a pic dated 2003 that I just found, and the article that goes with it is at SOS Tin Can Bay

OK, here's a photo of the chartplotter. Depths are in meters. Hook Point is at the south end of Fraser Island if you want to find it in Google maps.

Try this it is from post 182 in Tidahapah refit

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24817&d=1384916948

Insequent said:

OK, here's a photo of the chartplotter. Depths are in meters. Hook Point is at the south end of Fraser Island if you want to find it in Google maps.

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Thanks

Wow, great stuff Brian and Tidhapah. One thing is for sure, James H is intrepid. Keep him safe, he needs to keep writing boat books and Amazon code.

Just checking the Dirona blog and James has posted a photo of a rainbow down at Inskip Point and the mighty Tidahapah is in it under the rainbow.
I see they are now up at Lady Musgrave Is a nice spot but it can get crowded during the cruising season coupled with a fair few bad anchorers.
Cheers
Benn

Complete hijack,

The tread title is.......Nordy knocked down to 69*

Obviously the * is supposed to represent degrees.I have never been able to find a degree symbol on my lap top either.

Is there one?

Andy not that I know of. I usually put deg. After it.
Cheers
Benn

Do a search under the windows search for special characters, it will be found!

"on a stabilized boat no less"...
Sorry, but I have to stop lurking and chime in: stabilizers and hydrostatic stability - the physics that keeps you upright - have almost nothing to do with each other. Horribly common misconception.

By 'almost nothing,' I mean the only way they're related is if you're referring to ballast, which heavy gyroscopes can also serve as.

Stabilizers keep you a bit more comfortable up until you capsize, but they do nothing to prevent it. You could in fact argue the opposite, since they probably lull people into traveling in sea states that would otherwise be viewed as too rough.

Andy G said:

Complete hijack,

The tread title is.......Nordy knocked down to 69*

Obviously the * is supposed to represent degrees.I have never been able to find a degree symbol on my lap top either.

Is there one?

Click to expand...

On a Mac, it is option (alt) 0 º

May be the same on a PC.

I get ° with alt-0176 on a PC but alt-167 produces the same. For some reason I memorized some 4-digit alt-codes for when I wrote reports. It does seem the easier way would be the shorter codes. Alt-1 is ☺ (smiley), etc.
There's a quick list at http://www.alt-codes.net/

harbor950 said:

On a Mac, it is option (alt) 0 º

May be the same on a PC.

Click to expand...

On PC it's alt 248, putting the letter or number you want to add the wee 0 or degree sign to immediately before that. How do I know? - use it a lot at work, as in medicine a lot of things are secondary to, (abbreviated as 2º to) -- hey thanks harbour950, I had forgotten option o did that on a Mac - and I use one at home all the time.

By the way for those feeling in the cold, today it reached 36ºC here, (about 100ºF) - horrible. Thank God for aircon.

Yes, thanks Harbor 950. I'll try and remember.

Pete, another hot day forecast for tomorrow plus morning showers and afternoon storm. So I think it will be Friday before I get to the 2nd Cricket Test. Then depending on where the game is at, perhaps go again at the weekend. India played well today, our guys have a big task ahead of them.

Brian,
My sentiments exactly. So have decided to tow the Center Console up to Urangan to chase some small blacks and golden trevally.
Probably see where the cricket is for Sat
Benn

Benn
If you decide to go to the 'Gabba give me a shout. Its an easy walk up the road from home for me to get there.