Scamp Build in Kansas!

[Bcbimmer]

Eric,

I have been following your build and must say I am very impressed with the quality of the work, makes my efforts on #70 look amateurish. Keep up the good work. Water must be warmer where you are than up here in the Pacific Northwest/Canadian Southwest.

Cheers

Dan

[Rob Hazard]

Eric,
I'm impressed with all your testing. Did you have any gear in the boat during the capsizes? Did you do any with an empty ballast chamber? Could your righting strap be made off to a cleat on the side deck and still work?

[ericleif]

Hi Dan, thanks!!! I’ve followed your build log as well, which was really helpful, and your SCAMP looks awesome! I think both of our boats look kind of like toy boats which I love.

That water isn’t warm, it’s hot! But it’s great to do testing in those conditions to try to get things right.

[ericleif]

Hi Rob,

I turtled with water ballast full, and just the stuff I’ve been taking on day sails - 2 anchors, 300 ft rode, 20 ft chain, some water, extra life jackets, etc. but I will try with some heavier cruising gear (I travel lightly though), that’s not tied down in the storage compartments to see how weight that can move around a bit affects things. I don’t think it will affect things too much, but won’t know until I try, and will let you know.

One thing that I did do was put in a third reef for one turtle (no first reef tied, and I don’t have set up for second reef). I didn’t tie up the nettles because I was lazy, and was thinking, that if things are chaotic, I might not be able to tie them all in right away.

On that turtle, the boat came up - a little slower and harder to finish at the end. When I got inside, I saw why - the pouch formed by the reef captured a bunch of water that couldn’t drain (gallons). I figure the weight of that water, that distance away from the boat would have a greater negative leveraging effect compared to things stored closer to the center of gravity of the boat, but we’ll see. (Maybe a good reason by the way to keep reefs tidy)

I made permanently attached righting lines that are tied with bowlines to the holes in bulkhead five behind the coaming. I made mesh bags with Velcro to hold, so all I have to do is pull on the loop sticking out and the whole strap (on either side) comes out ready to go. On the first turtle day (bad day), I just used a dock line cleated to the side cleat so that could work too, but with it permanently attached, I know all the loops are in the right spots. If I didn’t have those tied in, I would cleat off a dockline to the midships deck cleat, climb up on the hull with the line, tie in two butterfly knot loops - first towards the middle of the hull between the skegs (maybe a little closer to the tie-off cleat), second at the skeg on the righting side (getting in the water side). Then I’d get in the water and pull on those.

Just a line with no loops - impossible, for me at least. I don’t think (for me) a bunch of knots in the line instead of loops would work either in terms of reliability and saving energy. But that’s just my body and skill set : |

[ericleif]

I tied a fifth loop in the end of the line that sticks out of the bag. It’s near the corner of the cockpit so I can find it easily:

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[ericleif]

I did a bit more turtle testing. My boat had its regular day sailing set up with 2 anchor system, and maybe an additional 10 lbs loose gear in the B3 forward compartment. Windless, waveless day. Centerboard retracted and cleated off.

1. Sail dropped and furled, no water ballast. Turtled fast, wouldn’t sit on side (capsize), just quickly rotated to turtle. It was difficult to right - had to get my body out of the water and as straight as possible, which was strenuous, and be patient. Little scary.

2. Full sail up, no water ballast. Turtled almost as fast, pretty much as above. Difficult to right - could not do it from the side - had to get up on the hull and stand - seemed like it might not right. Almost capsized when trying to reboard with capsize water sloshing around.

3. Full sail up, full water ballast tank. Capsized first - sat on its side. Pulled it to turtle. Easier to right, easier to reboard. More gentle in general.

4. Full sail up, full water ballast tank, dumped approx. 4 gallons of water in each side locker to simulate additional 60 lbs of gear. I don’t think food water and cruising gear will be more than that for me. Not sure I noticed a difference between 3. and 4. Think I did this twice. Probably should have tried with even more weight. Maybe some other time.

5. Pumped out the side lockers and turtled another time or two with results similar to above (3. And 4.)

This is all subjective right? For some reason even 3., 4., and 5. felt a bit more difficult that the previous day of testing. I could have just been more tired, sore; or sail position, or main sheet?

Without water ballast it felt significantly different to me, turtled faster, wouldn’t sit on side, difficult to right, and tippier, especially with capsize water sloshing around - again this was without wind and waves.

When testing, I was very wary of getting tangled in lines, caught under the sail, bonked on the head, getting overly tired (can be pretty strenuous). There were also lots of boats around me. If others try this I would strongly recommend having a boat there ready to help if needed. Better yet - accompanied by someone that has experience capsizing, ideally capsizing this boat.

Hope that helps

[Rob Hazard]

Thanks, Eric. That's an illuminating and thorough report. I'm embarrassed to admit I have not capsized my Scamp yet, but I have volunteered to try it next week in front of witnesses. I will be wearing my drysuit for the Maine water temps.

I'll let you know what happens.

[Brent65]

Eric, excellent work here! We can all benefit from your thorough testing. Thank you so much for sharing.

Lessons I learned from you:

1-We should all be testing our boats and personal gear to learn first hand how to handle these probable situations.
2-We should probably all run with water ballast for ease of righting.
3-We should all have some provision for righting the boat from a full turtle.
4-We should probably be securing the reefing nettles.

Keep up the great work!

[simeoniii]

Great work Eric. We are all learning from you.

First lesson here is to avoid the dreaded turtle!

Have you tried coming up on the turtled hull from over the transom and pulling your self up using the skegs, keeping your body mass low?

Also, throwing your turtle line over the hull into a stiff breeze may be impossible. Swimming it around the boat would be a waste of precious energy and time.

I use a soft floating poly line with a heavy doggy Kong knotted on the end. It throws well. I suppose if I needed a stirrup on the end I could tie a quick bowline.

I will be adding some loops in the line. That's a great idea.

After all your capsizes, are you happy with hatch watertightness?

Best wishes and happy sailing,

[Rob Hazard]

Eric,
In rereading your capsize practice account, I see that you did not find grabbing the skegs to be much help. Was that a question of leverage, or of fingers slipping off the skeg? Would it be better if you had routed deeper finger holds in them?