Here's the scene, I'm heading North on a nice Nor'easter when the weatherfax tells me I'm going to be hit by a
very big Southerly Buster...this is going to be like force ten + and I'm going to be on bare poles, but no worries I have
a nice big drogue to chuck out to slow me down. So the question is, when the storm's almost on me do I throw the
drogue off the stern or do I round up and throw it off the bow.
My thinking is.. If it's off the bow then I can hide behind the dodger out of the worst of it, and the boat would take the
sea better bow on. If it's off the stern then I'm exposed to every wind blown water all the time and every time I take
off the storm boards to go below half the Pacific Ocean is going to end up in the saloon.
But it raises the question of rounding up. Take a boat like MB's S&S 34, a proven blue water boat. At what point does
it become unsafe to round up, or is there a knack to turning into an approaching storm ??
So, what's it to be....Bow to or Stern to the storm.

The boat's shape is streamlined from the bow so logic says it will make less leeway and ride better if drogued from the bow.

The counter argument to that is that this will risk severe damage to the rudder especially if it is not securely lashed.

The other alternative is to lash the helm fully to one side and lay ahull which is akin to heaving to but under bare poles.

No matter which way you go they are all dependant on how much leeward sea room you have.

www.yachtingworld.com/features/skip-novaks-storm-series-part-8-warps-and-drogues-256

Oh, a whole lot of points here..

Boats are generally built to go forwards into the weather rather than backwards. A wave filling the cockpit from aft could quickly be followed by another; this same wave might pass quietly over the bow and the water roll off the side decks.

It is worth too mentioning that the only times (3) the design that I have and sail most often has been rolled has been with no sail up, and thus no method of quickly avoiding a bigger-than-normal sea. The boat heaves to very well (heavier displacement Cole design) so I prefer to do that rather than try to run with it, or to try to lie under bare poles. Having enough sea room isn't always the case, so gentle fore-reaching while hove to saves either getting too close to the rocky stuff, or losing hard-earned ground.

If you persist with the drogue idea, where are your strongest cleats? Don't overlook the likely loading, even with some form of snubbing device. Having a cleat forcibly removed would add an unwelcome distraction, even if the subsequent hole in the deck wasn't large.

Interesting to note that RNJ and others of that generation were great proponents of towing warps to slow themselves down in heavy weather, mostly to stop being pitchpoled. They were heavy displacement full keel hulls. RNJ describes in one of his books about it taking three days (in his exhausted post-storm state) to pull the tangle of warps back on board again.

It does depend on your hull shape too - a modern racer design with a narrow deep keel and bulb is unlikely to heave to well if at all; that same design is also unlikely to have cleats capable of taking the loads imposed by a drogue. But, correspondingly, that same design with little drag would probably be safest running with the storm under a storm jib.

Finally, it depends on how many good helmspeople you have, especially at night; even fully crewed you reach a point with tiredness and potentially seasickness that it just gets too hard to steer the boat. And most autopilots will have long passed the limits of their capabilities. At that stage, anything is better than the person steering losing concentration and rolling the boat off a wave.

Short answer then is that you need to try different ideas before that Force 10 arrives, and have a game plan to deal with it along with a second or third option if the first doesn't work. If I absolutely had to tow a drogue it would be from the bow, but your mileage may vary!

Good points. I just want to explore the rounding up question. I've past an island I can hide behind thereby excluding
discomfort and damage, however it means turning into the building swell to do this. If I have a fin keel can I get away
with this because it can turn quickly as opposed to a long keeler that won't. ??. I'll be down to bare poles but I can motor
so if I can round up under motor and make it to the island would that be the thing to do ??, or is it just too unsafe to
even contemplate trying to turn around in a big sea ??.

Hi Sam
I agree with Syd gentle fore-reaching or heaving to is the is the way to go. You should be able to sail into some pretty strong winds and big seas in a well founded boat as long as you have a deep third reef or you have decided to hoist a tri-sail long before it starts getting hairy. Force 10 would not be a problem and I wouldn't be pulling all my sails down until it got much windier or if the forecast was for winds approaching hurricane force.

Once it gets too much for a triple reefed main then you could drop it completely, (which would be a fun exercise if you didn't have lazy jacks and a boom bag) and, providing you have enough sea room tow a drogue and run before it. Jon Sanders reckons an old car tyre with some chain attached is good enough.

I wouldn't hang anything off the bow if I could possibley get away with not doing it. Mainly because its no fun up there when the foredeck drops away and you're hoping that you will land back on the deck rather than over the side. Practicing all that in relatively calm waters is useful and good to do, but in reality the biggest risk in extreme weather is getting washed off the boat.

Thats my 2 cents worth

Thanks for your two cents worth Andy. You can certainly pick holes in the scenario because I have absolutely
no experience sailing outside of Pittwater, but I'm still interested in the dynamics of what can and can't be done.
Syd raised the question of rudder damage. I have a fin keel and a spade rudder so would my boat be more prone
to rudder damage taking a storm stern on than another type, such as a keel hung or skeg hung rudder ??.

It really depends on what sort of boat and whether your drogue is a drogue or sea anchor. We did a lot of planning and research on this question for a long trip on a Hanse 400. We had a drogue that we prepared a bridle and 100m of line for, it slowed the boat down dramatically but didnt by any means stop it (a parachute anchor may have) . We decided to stream the drogue from the stern and run slowly before the weather using the drogue to stop surfing and potential pitchpoling and to give directional stability to stop broaching.
We felt that streaming it from the bow would have caused us to be running astern at medium speed which would be very unstable.

However different yachts and different parachuts / drogues work differently, It is well worth trying it out!!!!

Now Sam, lets get this right..
"Here's the scene, I'm heading North on a nice Nor'easter when the weatherfax tells me I'm going to be hit by a
very big Southerly Buster..."

Point One: You will not be heading north on a nice Nor'easter!
Point Two: By weatherfax I presume you mean the BOM site and you will have been following the weather at least a week out ahead thus you would not be caught by the southerly.
Point Three: You will let that southerly blow by as you will want to go north on the back of it. Probably one to two days after.
Point Four: You will not be out there to deploy your drogue, you will be sitting in a nice anchorage enjoying the great company of your fellow sailors also sheltering from the weather.
Point Five: The most important point, with a southerly blow you will BE ON A LEE SHORE!! That's not on.

Point Six: All the other advise about deploying a drogue is OK but you would only be doing that during an ocean crossing where you have plenty of sea room.

So, what can you put in the place where you had the drogue stored?

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samsturdy said..
Thanks for your two cents worth Andy. You can certainly pick holes in the scenario because I have absolutely
no experience sailing outside of Pittwater, but I'm still interested in the dynamics of what can and can't be done.
Syd raised the question of rudder damage. I have a fin keel and a spade rudder so would my boat be more prone
to rudder damage taking a storm stern on than another type, such as a keel hung or skeg hung rudder ??.

No problem Sam its only my opinion, even though I have done a long voyage I still wouldn't have as much knowledge as other people on here.
I think your rudder would be safest running before the storm and streaming the drogue astern. But like Black Swan said a parachute anchor would slow the boat much more and would reduce the chances of damage if streamed from the bow. I guess spade rudders are inherently less robust than keel or spade hung rudders, all other things being equal.
Having said that my new boat has a spade rudder and I'm quite comfortable with it for ocean sailing.

Exactly right nsw. however you are forgetting that I have no experience outside of Pittwater, so, I've read in a sailing book
how to sail and I've set out only to find myself in this predicament, What am I to do ??.
Just as an aside on boat handling quirks. when I retired I was a paddle boat skipper on the Murray at Echuca. The top end of the river is
narrow and the boats are big. To round up going down stream you drive your bow post into the river bank and wait for the current
to take your stern down stream so your bow is now pointing up stream and you drive off. So while yachties keep as far away from
land as possible, on the river you use the land to turn round. Good Different.
Hence questions about how you do things out at sea.

I've never sailed in those conditions but Ed Psaltis, Skipper of the 98 Sydney to Hobart winner, Midnight Rambler is an advocate of 60 degrees into the wind for "light displacement boats" to avoid end over end. Somewhere there is a video of him talking about storm management at a cyca event - its an excellent talk. I guess it works well when you have a fully crewed boat, not sure how well it works for a short handed sailor. Have to make sure you can get the storm sails up early and the self steering works well.

Read more at www.mysailing.com.au/news/australia-s-10-greatest-sailing-achievements-no-6-afr-midnight-rambler#2CJQvqSy3Oq71wQB.99 .

......If he steered straight up the swell, the boat would stall and be flipped backwards. If he steered at right-angles, it would be rolled through 360 degrees, breaking the mast and possibly sending Rambler to the bottom. He later related how he maintained a mantra throughout the night. As he felt the bow start to lift he would chant to himself, "60 degrees Ed, 60 degrees." Drenched by the horizontal spray and waves that broke over her, and freezing in the southerly winds that were straight off the Antarctic, he stayed at his post until sunrise, never thinking further ahead than the next wave. A

Response depends on the boat.
What sort of boat?

Also never going to get a nice northeaster before a big front.
The same weather mechanism drives both.
Then it depends on which part of the coast ie how much set influences decisions.
For instance going to sea east of Smoky with a really big front means you are going to die anyway given the amount of set.
There is youtube clip taken by a mate aboard Yendys well east of Coffs in a Sydney Southport and out in the set.
Check it out.
The boat is 55 feet long and is looking like a laser.

Hi Lydia that brings back some memories I've done a few deliveries as crew on that boat, it gets up and boogies.
Sailed it Hobart to Brisbane twice with a broken mast and jury rig.
Its a shame now it's sitting in Rivergate, a new mast is worth more than the boat. It's hard to see how it will ever sail again
Funny how weather systems work though, often, here on the Gold Coast we will get intense south westerly thunderstorms after a day of northerlies

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lydia said..
Also never going to get a nice northeaster before a big front.
The same weather mechanism drives both.
Then it depends on which part of the coast ie how much set influences decisions.
For instance going to sea east of Smoky with a really big front means you are going to die anyway given the amount of set.
There is youtube clip taken by a mate aboard Yendys well east of Coffs in a Sydney Southport and out in the set.
Check it out.
The boat is 55 feet long and is looking like a laser.

You mean this one?? Memorable for me as it gives you a good idea of the size of the swell.
Check out 21 secs in for the time poor.

Sam,
I agree it depends on the boat.
For example, with my hull shape;
- I can't heave to without ending up at 60-70 degrees.
- Boat's most comfortable running with the wind on an aft quarter than heaving to.
- If offshore (no lee-shore, drogues of any kind are a bitch to get back in) and I needed to slow down, I'd go with a deploy off the stern and a jordan series drogue.

Shaggs, there is another one with less pic quality no sound track but great waves

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lydia said..
Shaggs, there is another one with less pic quality no sound track but great waves

Ahah! Hadn't seen this one before.
Thanks Lydia.

Really depends on the boat and the setup which is the best advice.

If this was in my 20 footer I would be heading for safe harbour at all costs, if that doesn't work look for where the storm will be weakest and heading there, you can try and out run it so it will fizzle out before it hits you, but if it looks like its building it may be better to turn around and try and head through it before it grows too big.

I got caught out in an force 12 last month in a Dufour 350. I recorded a max apparent wind speed on board of 75knots and measuring against the mast the waves were 10m+, I'm not an experienced sailor, but my experience for that yacht was heading down wind with it was far too unstable, I could not hold it straight and almost got thrown out a few times. Altering course, turning bow to waves resulted in the yacht sliding down the waves side wards with the mast touching the water on the leeward side, this was pretty scary and terrible for the engine which isn't suppose to be on more than a 15degree lean, again almost got thrown overboard. Eventually managed to turn into the waves, max sustainable revs bow to waves at 45 degrees was manageable, even the autopilot could handle that while I took shelter down below. Pointing any higher would cause me to drop too sharply off the back of the waves and a 0g astronaut feeling in the cabin before myself and everything else would come hammering back down to earth again. Motoring at 45 degrees into it my SOG was 1knot so the storm calmed again before I ran out of sea. Is this the right advice for everyone? Nope, in hindsight I would of in order:
1. Stayed in the harbour.
2. Dropped anchor.
3. Ensured I had storm sails/ drogue for bad weather and set them up heave to, additionally had a safety line the length of the yacht set up before I left the harbour, and everything locked away that could be a projectile.
4. Motored into it from the start with autopilot on and myself battened down below.

Good luck buddy, I hope it works out well for you.

Most yachts will not lie bow on to the wind/swell on a drogue or sea anchor deployed from the bow. They generally lie 40-70 degrees off.
As Cisco notes if you are drifting astern at a couple of knots the load on the rudder is high.
My boat, S&S34, heaves to brilliantly and I have done so in up to 50 knots and 8 metre seas.
I have a drogue with rode but it is really there as emergency steering or to slow me down running before the wind. I doubt I will ever be in a sea where I would need to run before the wind but the only way I would deploy it is from the stern.

The two videos are certainly showing some heavy weather but hardly dangerous or life threatening seas or winds.

The following literature is highly recommended:

Dashew: Surviving The Storm

Dashew: Marine Weather Handbook

Dashew: Practical Seamanship

Dashew: Offshore Cruising Enciclopedia

Andrew Ewans: Singlehanded Tips

All those books, 2000+ pages of nautical wisdom are freely available on the net as PDF's and they would take up little space on any phone.
I am flabbergasted, that not one of the esteemed members have mentioned them. It should be compulsory reading for any seafarer with common sense.

I got the idea that the drogue works better if cast off the bow because the boat is more wave resistant when heading into seas but they are harder to put in and retrieve which is why some sailors say do it stern to and fasten to winches. ie. Safer for the crew since no foredeck work. Having a centre cockpit boat we are relatively safe from a wave filling the cockpit. Now Im confused

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Trek said..
I got the idea that the drogue works better if cast off the bow because the boat is more wave resistant when heading into seas but they are harder to put in and retrieve which is why some sailors say do it stern to and fasten to winches. ie. Safer for the crew since no foredeck work. Having a centre cockpit boat we are relatively safe from a wave filling the cockpit. Now Im confused

Streaming drogues and warps from the stern of a boat basically has the same effect as a tail on a simple kite. As wind increases, the longer the tail provides directional stability by dampening the overpowering effects of the wind so that the aerodynamic and trim properties of the kite can remain in control.
Take the tail off the kite on a windy day and it will probably spin violently out of control, similar to a boat being pushed around by the wind and swell.

Drogues should not be confused with sea anchors.

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Jolene said..

Drogues should not be confused with sea anchors.

Exactly my point - sea anchor off the bow and maybe 1 knot leeway. drogues of the stern and maybe 4 knots headway. drogue of the bow and 4 knots leeway down wave faces = thats bad and potential rudder damage time.

not sure why you dont run for shelter though

Ahhh so we're saying we dont want the boat pushed backwards down the waves which may break the rudder?

Sometimes its not possible to run for shelter. I think cats with blinding speed can but slow monos cant always, Halfway between Napier and Gisborne NZ on my RORC39 at the time a big southerly gale was approaching so we turned east to get out of its path and stay away from Portland Island lee shore doing 6 knots which was out best speed then the gale tuned east too and caught up with us anyway. Oops.

There is a theory for the old style long keelers, that lying "a-hull" causes a slick which makes for calm(er) water upwind.

The theory is complicated, but the Jordan type multi- small parachute drogue does something similar, as it de-stabilises the waves way up-weather.

As for streaming a drogue type device from the bow, this is a similar situation to anchoring in a strong wind. The boat is usually not designed to be stable directionally as you go astern, and will tend to slew around. So a Jordan type long drogue from the stern would be my choice.

However, for all these types of tactic, you need lots of sea room. In a coastal situation you may not have it. When I was caught out in a strong Southerly off the East Coast, I managed to run off under bare poles, and had enough control to steer parallel to the coast at about 10 degrees to the wind.

So am I right from the above - if we can dead stop the boat (as such) by hanging our drogue or sea anchor off the bow this is best because the boat can best handle waves off the bow and the rudder wont be damaged because we are not surfing backwards. However if we cant slow the boat enough we hang our drogue or sea anchor off the stern so the ruddder wont be damaged when the boat slowly goes downwind? Im trying to make a mental rule for myself

No.

A drogue and a sea anchor are not the same thing. My point is if you try and use a drogue like a sea anchor you risk rudder damage from sliding back down waves. Drogues are deployed off the stern to slow you down when surfing so you dont broach or pitchpole. Sea anchors are much larger and designed to hold you to about 1 knot or so leeway when deployed off the bow..

Use which ever one you have in the way its designed to be used. Try and use them interchangeably and your bound to have a big problem.

Personally I have always run as its an active form of storm management vs the static one of the sea anchor but it depends on the boat what works, crew limitations, sea room etc

I have read a few reports of yachts streaming a sea anchor from the bow. I would not consider a sea anchor in any circumstances.

The boats lie 45 degrees (plus or minus 20 degrees) off the wind so the loads on the anchor are immense. If the anchor parts company from the boat, happens often, you are in deep poo. If it takes the cleat you also have a hole to contend with. You will inevitably be deploying the sea anchor once the wind has built, is that really wise as most of us don't have young fit crew to go forward to do it. How will you recover it after it has twisted and tangled.

Unless you go sailing in the tropics in cyclone season or in the Southern Ocean you are extremely unlikely to experience a sea/wind you can't run with. If necessary with a drogue to slow you down.

My and, from my reading, most offshore sailors preference is to use an active tactic in heavy seas and strong winds. If you can no longer sail or run, preferred, then I have heaved to on a number of occasions in strong winds/big seas and would do that rather than deploy a sea anchor. The S&S34 makes about 1.5 kts with about 30 degrees of leeway when heaved to in winds gusting to 50 kts. Even with a direct onshore wind you can make a small offshore track.

If your boat can't heave to maybe it isn't a suitable offshore cruising yacht.

I'm with Morning Bird all the way. Don't use a sea anchor. A drogue is for running off, and heaving to is for bow first. Here are two interesting (and opposing views:

www.morganscloud.com/2017/05/19/battle-testing-a-jordan-designed-series-drogue/

And from Skip Novak: