I wrote this for another venue, but I intend to try to post my writings, as they emerge, on the Forum in hopes it can become a livelier place to share information, thoughts and procedures.
Hi all,
The talk of solar panels nudges me to share some thoughts on their installation and the storage of gear in general. This is intended mostly for boats that will go offshore, but is (I think) wise for all boats who do more than day sailing hops.
The forces of boats that fall off a wave or get slammed by the rare, but predictable wave, are enormous. (For those who have never been in a sailboat who has fallen off of a wave or gotten slammed by one: think enormous blow, one that takes you a while to shake off, even if you were securely seated: eg. you worry about your fillings). Any misc gear attached to the lifelines/stanchions is problematic, but solar panels are among the worst (followed by kayaks) because of the huge amount of surface area for the wave to hit. Stanchions can and do rip right out of the deck leaving holes for water to enter the boat. At best they become mangled and leave a dangerous deck to work on. Even blows of a less catastrophic nature over-stress the fittings leading to leaks in the stanchion bases (if your stanchion bases are leaking, look to whether there has been gear attached).
This goes for jerry cans (they are necessary equipment, just stored empty down below), bicycles, kayaks, spray curtains (my spray curtains are attached with light bungie cord so they stretch/break away well before any stress/damage to the stanchions/lifelines), etc. Lifelines are there as lifelines, not as convenient tie off points. Alchemy carries ~~90g of fuel which has been enough to get me from one fuel depot to the next without keeping fuel on deck for 15+ years. This includes 2 Atlantic crossings and many major hops in between, and often spending considerable time in areas where fuel depots are considered scarce.
Bottom line, I consider gear stored attached to lifelines dangerous. Many, perhaps most, will go years, perhaps decades, without mishap, but if you wish your boat to be fitted out and in seaman-like shape for offshore sailing and passage making, I would suggest re-thinking all gear attached to lifelines/stanchions with the intention of freeing this area of gear.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Items we carry on the stanchions/lifelines:
[ul][li]horseshoe buoy[/li][li]lifesling (glorified horseshoe buoy tethered by a long floating line)[/li][li]MOM-8 (pyrotechnically inflated horseshoe buoy with water ballast, inflated mast and visibility flag)[/li][/ul]
Nothing else is carried on deck, other than the genoa and spinnaker (ballooner) poles, which lay flat on mounts built at the boat's factory on the inside of the toe rails.


I've always wondered what sort of wave it would take to get them to disengage and fly away. The horseshoe buoy mount, in particular, looks very flimsy. Can you briefly describe the where, when, and sea conditions where you got slammed to the point of worrying about fillings?


Thanks,

Hi Hasbun,
I have been accused of rarely achieving the status of “briefly”, but here goes:
We were on our way to Bermuda from New York in June of 1996. We left with a forecast of light winds and that is what we got for 2 days or so, enough to get us out of the Gulf Stream. About that time, we started hearing about a low with “rotation” developing off the coasts of the Carlinas. Within another day it was clearly a tropical depression and heading right towards an intersect of our course. We changed course to east by southeast hoping to get ahead of it, across its lay line and have the TD curl north in back of us. This meant sailing close hauled with good reason to go fast and that is what transpired.
The waves were immature, so they were not enormous, probably in the 8-12 foot range for the most part with regular larger ones. Winds were in the 25-35 kn range. We were hand steering. Every hour or so (I would guess at this late date) we would come flying off a wave, (or the wave would dissipate under us) and we would come crashing down. Those falls were when I worried about my fillings: I was far more worried about the boat as the crashes were truly jarring. We felt like we were in free fall for at least a second or two. Truly unsettling. Once across the forecast course of the TD, we hove-to for 6 hours and collapsed comfortably and let the TD goes its merry way.
Drops such as I just described put enormous pressure on the leeward side where the boat hits the water. That is the crunch point that will easily take out stanchions when fenderboards, jerry cans etc are attached. Less problematic, but occasionally destructively powerful are the occasional wave that comes up and smacks the windward side.
I should re-iterate: there is the catastrophic damage that is clearly most worrisome, but also the accumulated longer-term damage of having one’s stanchion bases (and attachment to the deck and the caulking) regularly over-stressed as it is being asked to do work it was not engineered for.
More specifically, for a boat that travels widely, I applaud your having such reasonable gear attached. After a thorough inspection of the pole’s attachment, I would likely think it ok. Most pressure will be compression “into the fitting” and much will be mitigated by the toe rail/ bulwark. Horseshoe mounts always look flimsy to me also, yet with the many high winds and occasional wave, they have never gone walkabout. One could secure with a line over the top, but that would make it harder to deploy. Mine just sits in its cradle.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Thanks both I think I will be storing my Jerrycans in the cockpit for the Davis Strait having read this. We fell off a wave in the Baltic once and can still remember the crash 10 years on.
Simon

Hi Simon,
I used to get replies to the message streams I was involved in forwarded automatically to my email acct. This very nice feature no longer seems to be occurring. Right now, it is no big deal to check as I have good internet, but when internet challenged, I tend not to check for long periods, so it is nice to have questions sent to my email, as that I do check regularly. My best, Dick

Thanks Dick. There is a tick box option to subscribe to a thread or topic but that vanishes from display on smaller, handheld devices. I am compiling a list of forum software shortcomings and we may well need to change if these things can’t be overcome.
Simon