MacGregorSailors.com

Oracle Cat flips in San Fran - http://www.wftv.com/sports/28228347/detail.html?treets

Capsize is par for the course with Sail Catamarans--You should not be sailing them if you don't expect it and know how to deal with it. Unlike a keel-boat, which when properly designed can roll 360 in the water and right itself inherently, once a catamaran exceeds its righting moment of about 45 degrees there's no chance of coming back from a capsize. Because of their wide stance, it's extremely difficult to capsize one laterally without a giant wave, but forward capsizes are pretty easy to accomplish because the bow will dig in at speed to overcome buoyancy. Catamarans are even designed to be righted in the water by the crew. For example, read through the owner's manual for the MacGregor 36 Cat--it includes righting instructions in the manual and points out the design features that allow in-water righting.

It's unfortunate that the media don't understand the various accepted differences amongst sailboats and report every capsize as if it were a disaster.

Our Macs unfortunately do not have infinite righting moment even with the flood ballast, which is why if you do manage to get them beyond horizontal in the water they will float upside down. However their righting moment is about 120 degrees with the flood ballast in, which means that they have to roll about 30 degrees beyond horizontal in order to remain capsized. Their righting moment without ballast is about 70 degrees, which is merely extreme heel, and which is what causes the vast majority of knockdowns and capsizes we hear about.

Better know as a pitchpole. Quite exhilarating.

~Rich

Reminds me of my Hobie 16 and 18 days.

The two guys who fell off have to buy the beer!

Hamin' X wrote:Better know as a pitchpole. Quite exhilarating.

~Rich

Rich, I used to pole vault in my younger days, very exhilarating unless you missed the landing(sawdust) Skiing Aerials off a ramp into the lake was much less stress on the body when landing Rob 8)Too old and brittle for that now

Hamin' X wrote:Better know as a pitchpole. Quite exhilarating.

~Rich

That's easy for you to say

Rick

Who makes the call?

"Ummmm Larry, we um flipped your boat."

More like....ummm...Larry, the boat needs an upgrade....

hhummm Larry Where the hull s Larry.....We can't lose LARRY! Find Larry!

OK, I'm going to be the browner here!

Showing my age, I have to say as a fan of many earlier America's Cup events, particularly the fabulous title reclain by Dennis Conner in my home port of Fremantle, W.A. ...... what a farce!
When the event changed from very evenly matched hulls and rigs to a one sided (country of origin) tour de force - the crew really ceased to matter. Don't get me wrong - I'm a great fan of 'cats' and other floating esoterica, but what's the next future round going to feature - a Nimitz class carrier?
I long to watch Dennis picking his nose on a mastcam while talking strategy and joking with the crew, again. I had my share of complaints at the time - namely the four year events events should have alternated the 12 metre (?) rule between identical hulls and rigs for all the contestants. Somewhere along the line we lost track of good old fashioned seamanship, and began the slide into a nautical space race.

As we Mac owners all know ..... nothing wrong with slow!

Ross

Crikey wrote: As we Mac owners all know ..... nothing wrong with slow!

...said by a man with a BLUE hull...

I love watching the America Cup race - the lawyers racing to meet the lawsuit deadlines.....

I think someone needs to organize a white versus blue event someday. We could call it - The Macgregor's Cup!

My rules would say the white hulls could be coated with teflon to even up the disparity.

Ross

Hey Crikey-

I hate to break it to you but a Nimitz class carrier has already been in the Americas Cup. I was a crewman on the Lincoln at the time of this incident.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/05/sport ... rrier.html

John
Atlantic Beach, Florida
2000 , Honda 30hp
https://sites.google.com/site/jaxm26x/2 ... rip-report