In our new series on Best Practices in Blue Water Cruising, member Tony Gooch, with more than 160,000 miles at sea, has tackled the topic of Heavy Weather Sailing, especially short-handed.

We have more than 2000 members with blue water experience and we would like to hear what you have learned across all those sea miles. One thing we all recognize is that every boat, every crew and every situation is different so please take a look at Tony 's excellent paper and please contribute your thoughts via this Forum. We 'll compile the comments into an OCC white paper for all to benefit. Many thanks.


Please Note: The original attachment has been removed because the paper has been updated and is posted in a later section of this thread.

Vice Commodore, OCC 

Indeed an excellent paper from a member who has a huge amount of open-ocean cruising experience. I cannot offer any worthwhile comment except to fully endorse Tony 's comments on rig, deck layout and rig components.

Here 's why. After Tony 's dismasting he had Mike Pocock (former OCC Commodore) design a re-rig for Taonui. Some time later Mike designed Al Shaheen for me (another 42 ft alloy hull) and I agreed to have the same rig design as Taonui. Best decision ever! Mike incorporated practically all the details which Tony features.

1. slab reefing at the mast with three reefs and all lines permanently roven
2. replacement of the standard boom gooseneck horns with Wichard clips. As Tony says, absolutely foolproof. Why is this not standard with every boat? It is so simple.
3. tapes through the reefing cringles on the luff with stainless steel rings each side (possible typo in Tony 's paper- these should be one and one half inch diameter)
4. Reefing winch - I would place it on the deck at the foot of the mast. That way you can sit down and crank it while keeping an eye on the reefing lines at the clew as they draw the clew down to the boom. To me it is safer and more comfortable than standing.
5. high cut roller furling headsails with oversized furling lines led back to rope clutches at the cockpit and an ability to put them on a secondary winch
6. Fitting an inner detachable forestay with a Pelican hook at the deck, for a hanked-on storm jib.
7. Good sized, non-electric, self tailing winches at the cockpit
8. Boom gallows. The ability to hold the boom securely when no mainsail is set makes for a great feeling of security - and protects the helmsman 's head
9. Twin spinnaker poles permanently stowed on the mast each with a boom lift permanetly rove and with a foreguy and afterguy permanently rigged to the pulpit and led back to rope clutches on the side deck at the cockpit. It is then very easy to lower the boom a little, clip on foreguy and afterguy, clip in the sheet before deploying the boom over the rail with the crew in the cockpit working the foreguy and afterguy to keep the boom under control in a seaway. The boom inner end is always attached to the mast and the whole system is fully controllable and can be set in almost any sea conditions.

I have been delighted with all these very practical features, unfortunately seldom, if ever, found on production boats.

The one big mistake I made was not to have a solid alloy dodger. Canvas spray hoods just don 't cut the mustard in really bad conditions.