"Unballasted, it is one of the wildest...

[TampaMac]

Good data, I will have to look up what the records were for up here.

I was out working, ie flying all over the eastern US, so I wasn't here for the event.

I did however have a friend come by and check out my house around 4 pm as Frances was departing the area. He said that the water was like high tide. It was however about two hours past mean low tide.

So what I think happened was that with the direct hit the wind was initially out of the North - that caused a reverse storm surge as high tide hit at 0430 AM. Then when the wind switched around to come from the West as the storm moved out to sea we got a storm surge but it came during low tide. Hence the damage was minimized.

The bottomline in my view is that there is no way it was an 8 foot surge.

What I want from the National Weather Service is an accurate perdiction of path and strength of the storm. Only then can you make a rational decision as to what to do.

We lose billions of dollars and many many lives because of their chicken little perdictions. Telling people that it is going to hit somewhere between the upper Keys and Jacksonville is insane and useless information.

People die in the evacuations, car accidents, panic induced heart attacks, and etc. - Hardly anyone dies in the actual storms.

850 people a year die from bee stings - that is probably more than two decades worth of deaths from Hurricanes in the USA (sure in other countries were people live in cardboard shacks thousands die but not here). It would make more sense if the govt required bee suits to be worn outdoors by everyone then to induce this huge panic from hurricanes.

Evacuating Florida is ridiculous, and that is exactly the kind of information they are in effect giving out to people. The information they give out is worse than useless.

500,000 people evacuated to Georgia for what turned out to be a lame cat two storm of 105 mph on a small area on the East Coast, and a strong rain event for the rest of the effected area.

I was on the east eye wall (strongest part) of hurricane Georges when it hit Key West at the same 105 mph. In fact Georges was exactly like Frances. It was a huge slow moving storm that hit at 105 mph. Nobody in Key West died. The trailer parks did fine. Houseboat row, that is where they have have houseboats tied to the seawall facing the direction the winds and storm surge were coming from. Mostly they did OK, damage but not too bad. A few were destroyed but not most.

Mostly all that happens is a few trees and telephone poles are knocked over. That is bad enough because you lose electrical power for a couple of weeks in the hot humid summer. That is not fun but hardly life threatening.

The solution is better perdictions, narrow evacuations only in areas where the storm surge will be violent, and MUCH BETTER BUILDING CODES and doing common sense things like underground utilities where possible.

Most people should stay in their homes and tough it out - that is the smart safest thing to do rather then to drive in a panic all over the country.

Yeah after Andrew building codes were improved. FUNNY THOUGH HOW THE GOVERMENTS exempted themselves from the codes. Florida growth has been very rapid since Andrew, many many schools have been constructed since then all over South Florida. Only one, sugarloaf elementry in Sugarloaf Key near Key West, has been built in accordance with the new codes. All the others saved a few thousand and built to lower standards.

Think about that one - what do you use for shelter? The schools. This kind of stuff should stop.

[Zoran]

To get back to sailing with no ballast, I did it few times when the condition were good for it. In moderate winds it is better and faster with the ballast than without it. On light winds you are much faster without ballast. I sailed all from close hauled to running. My rule is if there is a chance of gusts both sheets are in hands and ready to release, if there is constant light winds on bad sailing day than only the main sheet is in hand (you never know). Wind can be powerfull and without ballast you can easy turn your boat up side down. If the winds are picking up instead of adding ballast you can pull centerboard up. As a result you will be experiencing more side slipping but the boat will apparently point the same and since it is slipping will not heel as much. I was sailing without ballast close hauled and keeled boats were heeling up to 15 deg, but I had my centerboard almost all up and I was heeling less than 10 degrees and side slipping a lot. In reality I was pointing approximately 20 degrees less then they were. But I I'll bet you that a had more fan.
Zoran

[Frank C]

Well, Mr. Z, that's exactly as I've heard. Empty ballast is faster only for very light winds - exactly when I'd not bother to sail because light winds are too boring. Hmmmm - sounds like a conundrum!

Actually, I'm not partial to the idea of empty ballast sailing because SF Bay is still only 62 degrees in the summer, usually prone to gusts, and colder yet in winter. Really don't want to go swimming - ever!

[Moe]

Knockdowns when I was a kid with a Sunfish on the Gulf Coast were no big deal. These days, with a landlubber wife I'm gradually convincing that boating is safe, a knockdown without immediate recovery could be fatal to my boating life. We're mostly on local lakes and Lake Erie, where we're lucky to have 70 degree water temperature, and back home in Pensacola, bull sharks have become much more of a problem than when I lived there, and she knows that.

So for those reasons, sailing without ballast isn't even an option on the horizon for us.

--
Moe

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

I agree that sailing without ballast in light wind is probably a bit faster and also that sailing without ballast in moderate wind could very well be slower than with ballast.

However, I also think there is probably a dimension that none of us are willing to try with a cruiser loaded full of possessions.....and that is sailing unballasted in heavy winds. If this boat is going to plane under sail, it is much more likely to do that unballasted and with as little weight as possible. I doubt it can be done with the stock sails though, need some flatter sails for that kind of sailing.