Legacy capsize

[sea kayaker]

Has anyone had the experience of capsizing a Legacy? If so what took place, sea and boat conditions and what was the recovery like?

[skip1930]

What? Unheard of. The boat would need to be hit by a A1M1 battle tank and rolled over by a huge wave after broaching sideways.
That would be really poor boat handling.
I don't know about Com-Pacs but Palmer Johnson Yachts must under go a 'roll and recover' trial conducted by ABS and the Coast Guard before Lloyds of London issues a certificate of coverage for insurance.
Every boat designer runs the numbers.  Sail without fear.

After years of trying I finally put the rail of my CP-19 under water three or four years ago with just a 155% head sail and held it as long as possible before she rounded up into a luff.

There was a capsize formula in Small Craft Advisor about eight years ago for sailboats. Just plug in the numbers of a particular hull shape and sail plan.

As to the question? I'll bet the Legacy is just a bit tender when the captain or crew step aboard.

skip.

[Craig]

Like Skip said! It would take some really brutal circumstances to capsize any ComPac boat. Barring broaching into a large wave as Skip said, the boat will round up way before she gets to 90 degrees which would constitute a really serious but still recoverable knockdown . Curious as to the reason for your question.

[kickingbug1]

   ive been sailing my 16 for i guess 5 years or so and im to the point where i try and put the rail in the water. i havent any reef points and have only rolled up my jib a couple of times when the crew got nervous. so yeah, it would take a number of circumstances to capsize a com-pac. add to those a skipper who doesnt mind the weather.

[skip1930]

Not a Legacy but check out the title page of Bob Burgess's CP-16 on Yahoo's Com Pac site.
It's an interesting photograph. I'd post a link or the picture but I can't find it.
She's down in the stern and smartly laid over with Bob at the helm.

skip.

[Eagleye]

That's a classic, Skip!

[skip1930]

So happy this picture was posted. It's rally telling.
See? It's hard to capsize a CP-16.

Thanx skip. "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"

[sea kayaker]

Thanks for the interesting comments and feedback. I have been sailing about 5 times on the Hudson in NY and on 2 occassions the wind was very gusty. I kept the main in hand but found the pulling down on the jam cleat to free it to be counterintuitive. The healing made me very nervous. The hull shape seems to me to have a lot of initial stability til the tipping point is to be reached. The formulas Dis/ballast, sa/dis seem to indicate more of a racer than a cruiser which is pretty obvious.
Skip's photo post is cool yet it seems to me that the boat pictured has just ridden over a boat wake creating the appearance of an immersed stern, not really sure.

[Eagleye]

SK,
Where on the Hudson do you sail?.
I'm near Catskill.

Allen

[NateD]

You can look at all of the formulas and ratios that you want, and you can read all of these comments about how stable and forgiving Com-Pacs are, but when the boat heels over and it feels like you're about to capsize, none of that will matter. Your mind goes into fight-or-flight, and all the logic reasoning disappears (at least for a brief moment). In my experience, the best way to overcome this is to TRY AND FLIP THE BOAT. Go out on a real windy or gusty day. Wear a life jacket and leave the hatch boards in place and the cabin sealed, then put up a little more sail than you really feel comfortable with, and leave it cleated off on a close haul. When the gusts hit fight the temptation to feather up into the wind, let the gusts heel you over, even if water comes over the combing into the cockpit. She won't capsize. Even if she did capsize, with the cabin sealed, it would just roll back upright, so just keep holding onto the boat and you'll be fine. After an hour of trying you'll find that it is impossible, then you can reef the sails and enjoy a nice day of heavy wind sailing, knowing in your gut that you won't capsize.

[Craig]

As Nate said so well the only way to overcome your apprehension is to test your boat and get to really know her and how she handles in all conditions. We humans generally prefer our world to be straight and level so sailing at an angle can be disconcerting for many people until they develop true confidence in their boat. In trite terminology, "being one with the boat" Having said that, it is a great feeling once you get there and will move your sailing experience to a new level. 

[mattman]

I would clarify a capsize or a knock down. I believe wind knocks down a boat, a breaking wave approximately 1/2 the waterline in height puts the boat in danger of a capsize. These are really two different situations. Now if you take a knock down and a wave fills the boat, then certainly a capsize could occur as the stability numbers change. How fast or if the boat recovers depends on the inverse stability of the boat. The capsize screening formula is Beam / (Disp/64.2)1/3. Anything under 2 is considered to be self righting. This formula has many drawbacks, it does not account for where the weight is located, the shape of the cabin top, the ballast ratio, the type of keel.... but it is a starting point for evaluation. Most of the stability issues that I have read about are a related to the Fastnet race where a host of boats capsized and there was loss of life. I also believe, if memory serves me, that the only crew members lost were those that abandoned vessels and took to life rafts. Many of the boats were later found fully afloat and self tending. The lesson I take from this is to never leave the boat until the mast goes under (a situation I hope I never encounter). Again good seamanship and common sense should go a long way to preventing either of these events, however running an inlet with a stiff breeze and opposing strong tidal influences should cause pause to ensure both safety of crew and vessel, especially in our small craft. I am not worried that I am going to capsize my boat, but I am not convinced that under the right circumstances and or lack of vigilance that my boat will not go over. Happy Sailing. 

[Pete H]

Hi guys,

Sea Kayaker, the Legacy has about 400 pounds of ballast in its stubby keel, and its designed weight is 1000pounds. For a small trailersailer that is a lot of ballast and gives a ballast ratio of 40%.  If you compare this to bluewater boats it may seem low but for a small trailersailer it is high. Can you capsize a Legacy? Sure! The lakes system I mainly sail has a bar entrance to the sea. This  entrance is notorious, the fishing fleet that uses it treat it with great caution, a couple of years back a trawler skipper misjudged his entrance and the waves on the bar turtled a 60foot trawler. Would this bar capsize a Legacy? Absolutely! BUT I don't sail my legacy through it. If I want to get out of the Lakes and go up the coast to the next suitable sailing area, I put it on the trailer and drive there. That's why I have a trailer sailer (travel between cruising grounds at 100 kilometres per hour).

But if your concern is about your Legacy being knocked down by the wind and staying down, that is a different matter. The Legacy is a fairly tender or tippy boat when you first step aboard, it heels over readily if you stand on the coaming getting aboard, and when sailing it will easily reach this same angle of heel in quite a light breeze. BUT, from hereon it stiffens up dramatically, and the further it heels the greater resistance to heeling becomes ( because now the weight of the keel has moved to the windward side).
If the boat was knocked flat by the wind to 90 degrees, the righting moment would be at its maximum. At this point, as has already been posted, wave action is the main problem as a large breaking wave hitting the bottom could turn the knockdown into an inversion, upside down, the mast top twenty or so feet in the water, the centreboard crashed back into its case, most trailer sailers, the Legacy included, are likely to stay upside down. At least in this situation the Legacy's inbuilt bouyancy should keep you afloat.

However as Skip said above this isn't likely to happen, before you got anywhere near a mast horizontal situation you would have eased the sails to come back up, but if things went wrong (jammed cleats, unconscious skipper etc.) because of the centre of effort of the sails having moved way out to leeward, the boat will turn it self head to wind and pop back up vertical, in fact if you deliberately try to induce excess heel you will feel the weather helm through the tiller trying to round up, keep trying, I bet you can't get it over much more than say 45 degrees, around about there the weatherhelm will win and the boat will round up. It's a safety factor and it' s built in. Sailind with the lee cabin windows submerged is a blast! Try it!

It was interesting that you said that the Legacy's figures make her sound like a racing boat, I would have thought that she was the exact opposite, slow, steady, simple, safe and heavy for her size. That's why I sold my last boat and bought a Legacy when I retired, just for pottering, just for fun.

Small Craft Advisor have a calculator on their website which allows you to calculate the seaworthiness of your boat, the Legacy scores very highly for its type.

Cheers,

[sea kayaker]

Eagleeye , I sail near Beacon and Newburgh.

[skip1930]

If your going to be rolled over there are two ways it's going to happen.

1~A wave will roll over your broached boat. Either with bare poles or with the sails up. Either way.
2~The wind will knock you down. Again bare poles or sails up. Either way.

Here is picture of our Star Boat in Lake Michigan with a wind knock down without boat moving forward. Note the calm seas.
No problem, she righted right up. As the mast lays over the sail is 'seeing' less wind..

skip.