Heeling under a bridge

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Doryman

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C Dory Year
2006
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255 Tomcat
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Lori Ann
I have been keeping an eye on the Rosborough list and someone there posted these three pictures, explaining that,

"For you sailors that want to travel the ICW with a mast higher than 65 feet.
This boat came in last night at Vero Beach.
It has an 80' mast and 7'10" draft.
Each water bag weighs 2000#
It's been coming down the ICW.
What a treat to watch the crew execute this maneuver."

Click Here

Warren
 
you can have brains or balls but not both....susan the safety nazi would never let me get away with that.
 
Wow that takes some big "bags-o-water" to pull that off.
I wonder who came up with that for the first time? "hey Billybob, theres a low bridge up there, see if you can hoist up some major weight on the mast and pull us over to starboard so's we can clear it."
 
Amazing -- sure would hate to see a sailboat with those bags overloaded -- over she'd go, fill, and ... blub!
 
I have seen this done before, but with the aid of a power boat along side acting in the same capacity as the water bags. It is nothing I would want to try without the aid of Dr. Bob (Thataway).
 
And that's why we own and cruise a C-25. We got tired of a 50' aluminum pole which wasn't used much.

Boris
 
There is a similar technique that is used on the Okeechobee Waterway... only instead of bags hanging from the mast, barrels are put on one side of the boat and then filled with water. Sure would seem like less stress on the rig.

As far as the waterbags pulling the boat over - it would seem to me that as soon as the waterbags hit the water, it would eliminate the weight. Those big masts and heavy rigging can take a LOT of stress... but what a mess that's gonna make if the highside shroud should part! :shock:

Any sailor who has gone under a bridge knows that "uh-oh" feeling... check the charts again, and approach that bridge really slow. :wink:
 
The rig can take it. (Assumption that the rig is in good shape). It will take the same force (or more) to put the boat over that far with wind in the sails, as with the water.

We have gotten several boats (first time was our boat) off from a grounding, taking a kedge anchor out several hundred feet abeam, then putting bow and beam kedge anchors opposite, to work the boat into deeper water, using the spinaker halyard to bring the boat down on her ear and bring the draft up.

But--what if a sport fisher decided to come thru that bridge when the sailboat was comming thru? We have had some who just had to go thru!--in one case pushing us onto a mud bank at high tide. We took a boat with 62.5 foot mast, plus Vhf antenna (total 66 feet) and 6'7" draft down the Atlantic ICW--the VHF mast touched the under supports of the bridge. I wouldn't want to take the chance of heeling the boat under the bridge.
The other issue is the draft. Currently there are some places where the boat with 7'10" draft will have to go outside..

For the most part in a sailboat of that size, it is much wiser to go outside. The reason we were inside part of the way, was first we had guests who went from one point on the ICW to another point on the ICW. When comming South, we had some very nasty January Weather off Diamond Shoals (Cape Hatteras) and came inside. But for the most part, we traveled outside when possiable.

I am interested on how they got the bags of water to swing out and not swing back in. I can understand how to get them back in...Interesting...But the idea of a dinghy full of water or the barrels has been used for some time--but usually for only a foot or two of clearance, not 15 feet! (ICW bridges are either lift or 65 feet--and some lift at max lift at 65 feet clearance.
 
thataway":32i1kqtw said:
I am interested on how they got the bags of water to swing out and not swing back in. I can understand how to get them back in.
Click to expand...

I have a theory about this, but I'd love to see it proven or disproven in a video.

Hoist the bags up to a predetermined height, then have the crew shift over to one side. As the boat starts to heel, the bags swing out to the low side. As soon as the bags come "out of column", they start contributing to the heeling. Then it gets scary for a couple of seconds, because everything starts moving faster and faster until the bags hit the water. The boat tries to right itself, but it can't. I don't think there's any particular danger of the bags swinging back. If they do, it means they weren't heavy enough.

To get them back in, I would guess they just release halyard slowly, allowing the rig to return to vertical. Wow. It seems to me that the big danger is the water bags themselves. The rig on any ocean-capable boat can take it, the hull can take it, and even if you overdo it. If you dog down all the hatches, to keep the water out if the rail goes under, there's really nothing you could do to damage the boat. It's built to do that all day and all night for thousands of miles at a stretch. But if the bags fail, and the boat suddenly rights itself under the bridge, now you need a new rig, or at least some new rigging.
 
thataway":2sk6qiym said:
The rig can take it. (Assumption that the rig is in good shape). It will take the same force (or more) to put the boat over that far with wind in the sails, as with the water.
Click to expand...

I agree Bob, the rig SHOULD take it but now the force is concentrated at the tip of the mast, not distributed over the area of the sail(s). If the opposite shrouds are strong enough and the spreaders distribute the force over the length of the mast, it SHOULD be OK. Quite an evolution, I'm sure they did some calculations, at least I hope so. :smile

We took the Battleship IOWA (BB61) under the Huey P. Long Bridge in New Orleans on the way back down the Mississippi to the ocean after drydocking and had to take the Tacan antenna off the tall stick. Had 18 inches of clearance and with 12 knots of current (flood conditions), three ocean going tugs on the stern pulling up river and one on the bow going down river, we were still going 6 knots. No way to stop it, only steer it.

Never gave a thought to heeling her over! :roll: :shock: :smile
 
Sorry, Folks - Post Deleted By Author
 
Mainsail loads are spread up and down the length of the mast, but foresail and spinnaker loads are always concentrated at the masthead (or at some other specific point, if it's a fractional rig). So any boat capable of broaching under spinnaker without damaging the rig ought to be able to take this force.
 
It appears there’s a horizontal line attached to the bags making it possible to adjust the counterweight hence achieving the desired degree of heel. It would have been nice to see how the process started, I’d speculate the crew moved to the side to start the heel and simultaneously let out the horizontal line to start the heel.
This is not much different then lowing a section of 48” pipe with a side-boom while simultaneously lowering your counterweight to avoid joining the pip in the ditch.
 
I just showed that pic to my broker, a old navy hand, and he told me that some of the older carriers had to do the samething, by flooding water tanks, to clear the golden gate at hi tide. Up to thirty degrees. I would have liked to see that.
 
I owned a 45 foot racing sailboat in partnership. We alternated weekends (and races) and one Sunday AM, I looked out the apartment window at the marina and "Speculation" was back in her slip, but the port upper shroud was slack. I walked over to the boat, there was about 3" of stretch of the port upper. This is a huge amount for a 5/16" SS cable to stretch. There was some other damage to the foredeck and the spinaker pole inboard lift winch had been torn off its base on the mast (5 5/16" SS bolts sheared). It turns out that the other partner was rounding the East End of Catalina about about 2AM and for some reason there was a very strong gust from about 180 degress of where the prevailing wind was comming. The spinaker was caught aback between the forestay and the mast--so I suspose that one might say that there was some lateral mast loading--but I suspect that most of the load was at the masthead. The boat was knocked down, the spinaker pole lift broke, and the pole was driven down its track to knock the winch off. When we replaced the upper shroud, we had the cable tested. It began to yield at over 10,000 lbs load. There was no other damage to the mast, fittings or boat. (and no-one was killed!)

On the other hand, I have seen back stay fittings fail because of crevice corrosion and the entire rig come down .

I think this is a bit of "guts ball" to do the water balloons under the bridge, but apparently it works for them. For me there are too many variables, including the actions of other boats on the ICW. Thanks for the thoughts on how the process begins--and this makes sense. If you think about this type of boat, its ballast, the 4,000 lbs is not much in comparison to the weight of the boat and keel.
 
I remember a very nasty sailing day years ago. I pushed my Jeanneau Tonic, Spirit, hard - going from Chesapeake City on the Chesapeake/Delaware Canal down Delaware Bay to Cape May, NJ in heavy wind, rain and chop.

After traversing the Cape May Canal and safely dropping anchor in Cape May, I was amazed to watch a large sailboat with a huge stick come through the canal bridge being towed by a commercial towboat.

It was being towed alongside and was winched way over so the mast would clear the bridge - which it did with VERY little room to spare.

At that point I was very glad that my masthead was only 39 feet over the waterline.

Nick
"Valkyrie"
 
Sorry, Folks - Post Deleted By Author
 
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