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Swiftsure-04

Capsize of 3D - Event analysis and lessons learned

Submitted by
   David Miller and Tom Speer

Dear Northwest Multihullers

I am sorry to have caused so many people such concern and am very grateful for your concern. This race is by far the best I have ever been in.

What follows are my lessons learned from the capsize, and crewman Tom Speer’s account is below.

The capsize was caused by human error and not by any fault in the boat or sailing equipment. We were carrying a sail combination that was not overpowered in the moderate conditions where we were at the time. We were sailing the boat conservatively in a race. The argument can be made that we were overpowered because we did tip-over but the capsize happened at the end of a number of incorrect decisions in the space of 2-3 minutes.

The capsize came about entirely because of a chain of escalating errors and could have been avoided at a number of points. The wind was about 19-20 knots true at 110 degrees apparent wind on the starboard gybe. There was a 3-5 foot swell going with the wind with about a two-foot chop over that. We had an asymmetrical spinnaker and full main up. The boat had handled this sail plan in the past up to 28-30 knots and been in control. We were not making a sail change. We were in excellent control with me steering to the curl on the chute and the trimmer hand holding the spinnaker sheet. We were not overrunning the waves and stuffing into the back of the one ahead. When we were pressed too hard I would turn down and the trimmer would ease if necessary. I would turn down fast enough sometimes jerking the boat around so that 3D didn't accelerate and want to bury the leeward bow. We were going between 14 and 17 knots. We would have had all four hands on deck to reef if it had blown more than 23-24 true. We had reported our position for the 12 pm radio check and had sailed about 16-18miles on the same heading and gybe since then. We had one person sleeping and one down below heating soup and eating. We were not tired having only been sailing 5 hours.

The first mistake was made when I turned over the helm and went below to eat. I should have stayed on deck long enough to make sure the boat was being sailed and steered as it was before the handoff. We should have talked over the reason why I was steering as I did---head up for speed to catch a wave and stay on it and then turn down to keep from going too fast and jumping over the next wave and stuffing the bow. I should not have assumed that we were going to sail the same way until I actually watched for a while. I picked up my cup of soup and started to eat down below. I should have come back on deck to watch but the helmsman had steered the boat before in similar conditions.

The second mistake began when the boat accelerated and turned up to starboard and the trimmer said "Go down, go down go down". 3D did turn to port but not fast enough to prevent her from accelerating more. This was turning the boat too parallel with the waves and instead of the wave lifting the stern and going more or less squarely under her from behind the wave crest was raising the stern while dropping the port ama diagonally down the face of the wave. The rudder was not in the water enough to have enough lift to overcome the main wanting to turn the boat upwind. The spinnaker sheet was released during the broach but at this point the boat had stopped and was beginning to be blown over by the main. If the main sheet could have been cut it would probably have released quickly enough to let the boat get back up but there was no way to get it out of the cam cleat with nothing to pull against. The main probably should have been released before the spinnaker, which would have turned the boat down. The helmsman and trimmer were tethered on and basically had the boat fall over on top of them and had to get out after it was upside down.

After we got out of the boat and onto the main hull the process of lasting long enough to be rescued began. We were lashed to the boat with a tether lashed around the dagger board and then individual harnesses were clipped to the tether. We were able to get three survival suit and one Mustang cruiser suit out and put them on. The cruiser suit went on over the top of a waterproof flotation suit worn by Tom. Most importantly we had sufficient flotation and insulation to make it through the time upside down without significant hypothermia.

We did have all required safety gear and all required communications gear including working handheld VHF and 1st generation EPIRB. What we didn't have was a means to keep them completely accessible with the boat upside down and the water surging inside. The handheld VHF was secured to the aft bulkhead and was lost to immediate use. The EPIRB was on the bulkhead and was activated inside the boat. The boat being of carbon construction may have stopped the signal or it may have just not worked properly. In any future boats the safety gear will be in a pod that is accessible from outside the boat, probably aft of the aft aka. A 406 EPIRP is going to be mandatory.

We had a US Coast Guard approved flare kit with extra rounds, a mirror and smoke flares. We had SOLAS parachute flares and we had the larger Skyblazer flares. Except for the SOLAS flares they were ineffective in the conditions.

We shot off 18-20 flares and smoke devices. We were so low to the water and the wind was now strong enough that the orange smoke and small flares were just blown down wind and were not very visible. The larger SOLAS flares worked well but were not seen by the cruise ship and fish boat we fired them toward. Chance encounters with boats working or looking ahead while racing were not working out. As the afternoon got later we realized we were would probably be rescued only by someone who was actually looking for us.

I certainly wished that the search had started sooner but I didn't expect it and it was evident that we would be there for awhile. We’re very grateful for the prompt initiation of the search once notified and the skill and professionalism of the Canadian Forces crews who found us and picked us up.

We’ll have more to say about the salvage and disposition of the boat later. However, the boat has been recovered and at the moment is at the Coastguard dock in Tofino.

Tom: I was running the spinnaker, straddling the port coaming and using the primary winch on the cabin-top. The main was sheeted in and traveled all the way down. The wind had been building from around 15 kt when we broke out from the light air at the start to over 20 kt. The seas has built up, too, to around 3 – 6 feet with what seemed to me to be short wavelengths. I didn’t see much of a long swell to the waves. There were very few clouds in the sky and the weather was warm for Vancouver Island. It was a glorious sailing day.

After we’d been in the good wind for only a couple of hours, the spinnaker tack outhaul chafed through against the screecher drum on the bowsprit. We got the spinnaker down, stowed the screecher down below, re-ran the outhaul, and put up the chute again. At the time, we were just ahead of Dieler and Rosinante. The sight of our spinnaker letting go followed by the activity on deck and re-launching of the chute may have led to some of the speculative reporting that we had blown our chute and were in the middle of a sail change.

Rather than actively trim the spinnaker continuously for hours, Dave had been steering the boat to the spinnaker luff and I had been holding the sheet, easing out a little as we worked the boat progressively more downwind. We started out sailing 90 –110 deg apparent wind angle, and as the wind and waves built, Dave was sailing the boat at lower and lower angles.

At the time of the capsize (1:30 PM), the true wind was 22 kt. When Paul took over the helm, he was initially steering down the waves at 170 deg apparent wind angle. The spinnaker was collapsing behind the main, so I asked Paul to head up. He headed up to 150 apparent, and the spinnaker filled. I asked him to come up more, and about that time Dave called from the cabin, “I was sailing between135 and 140,” which I took to mean 135 – 140 apparent wind angle, but coincidentally it was actually the magnetic heading to which he was referring. It looked like Paul was making a gentle correction to come up when a wave lifted the stern. The heading went up to 120 degrees apparent, and I could see that the helm was not responding to his attempts to head back down. True wind at the time was 22 kt.

The reason I can relate these details so precisely is because I was paying too much attention to the helmsman and not paying attention to my real job, which was running the chute. I looked forward, and saw that we were burying the ama bow. I let go of the spinnaker sheet, but it was too little too late. The boat continued to round up and seemed to capsize more sideways than forward under the pressure of the main. In this, it seemed more like a monohull broach than a multihull pitchpole. The spinnaker was luffing, but I couldn’t see if it there was still pressure in the after portion of the spinnaker. Although released, the spinnaker sheet was still around the winch and the turning block was a Harken Hexaratchet, so there could still have been some residual tension on the sheet.

I was clipped in to a webbing jackstay just outside the cockpit. I was already in the water when I realized the boat had gone past the point of no return. The capsize reminded me a lot of those in my old M-16 scow. The mast hit the water, and the boat slowly turned turtle. I was underneath the cockpit and Joe was with me. Our airspace under the cockpit was slowly disappearing as the boat settled lower. I made 2 – 3 attempts to get out from under the cockpit, but it seemed like my tether was fouling on dangling lines and holding me back. I unclipped from my tether and was able to push down and out, coming up on the “new starboard” side. Once free, I stood on the net, retrieved my tether, and clipped onto the waterstay. Had I not been able to unclip, I would have had to cut the tether using the knife I carry on my harness.

Dave was on the “new port” side, shouting to Joe and helping to get him out from underneath. Paul had already gone back into the boat.. Joe and I got on top of the boat, while Dave went forward to help Paul retrieve survival suits and safety gear. Paul found it easier to push things out the forward hatch to Dave than to attempt to get them out through the cockpit. Is potted the blue nylon mesh anchor bag floating off the starboard bow, and jumped down to get it. I untied it from the anchor rode and also gathered up a bunch of sail ties that were floating in the tramp area. Later, we also recovered a coil of spectra and a coil of polypropylene line. About this time, Paul had sent out a canister of flares to the starboard side, and I was able to work it aft under the nets to where I could retrieve it. All of the loose items went into the anchor bag and were secured to the boat. Once Paul had retrieved all the safety gear he could, he came out and joined us on the boat.

When Paul was inside, he activated the EPIRB and set it on a shelf,  but then lost track of it. So the beacon remained inside where either it didn’t’ work or the carbon-fiber hull blocked its transmissions. After the boat was recovered, the Coastguard found the EPIRB still inside and verified that it had been activated. In any event, no signal was ever received. Paul was unable to locate the handheld VHF (it, too, was later recovered with the boat), so we were without any electronic signals.

I was straddling the boat aft of the dagger board, and the Millers all ended up forward of the board. Paul had put on his survival suit while inside the hull and had retrieved two survival suits and one floatation suit. I had put on my flotation suite earlier and the others were still wearing foul weather gear. So we decided they should get the survival suits and I put on the flotation suit over my flotation suit to give me double insulation, although not as much coverage for my hands, feet, and head. The survival suits were designed to be used as dry suits, but all had water inside as a result of being fished out from under the boat, and Paul looked like Gumby, with the whole lower half of the suit totally full of water. I had to slit the toes of his suit to drain the water out just so he could get up on top of the boat. Given that the suits and clothing were all wet inside, the value of the survival suits was considerably diminished and my double flotation suit provided at least as much insulation when wet. Eventually we slit the feet of all the survival suits for drainage.

We put my tether around the daggerboard, since it was of the three-hook variety and longer than the others. The sealed Pelican box with survival gear and the blue anchor bag with loose items were tied to the tether with the sail ties at the board and the other three also attached their tethers to mine. We had only recovered about a liter of water, and the first time we passed it around for a sip was the next morning.

Straddling the boat quickly became uncomfortable, and the wind was still blowing 20 kt. Once we had everything and everyone squared away, I lay on my stomach to conserve energy reduce the area presented to the wind and to be more comfortable for an extended period. I expected from the start that we would be spending the night because we wouldn’t be missed until 8:00PM at the very earliest and by the time a helicopter arrived at our last position it would have at best about an hour to search before dark. So I made conserving heat and avoiding hypothermia my top priority. Once I had the section of hull warmed up under me, I avoided losing it and maintained my prone position throughout the day and I kept my head tucked in the lee of the daggerboard and held onto sail ties attached to the tether. From that position I became the equipment custodian, retrieving the box dangling alongside the hull when needed and holding it while Paul got the necessary flares or other equipment out of it at night.

We were located by a Canadian Air Force CP-140 Aurora (sub hunter with a P-3 airframe) at about 9:30 AM. The search had started around 5:30, with a CH-46 Labrador helicopter searching the shoreline out to around 5nmi, a DeHaviland Buffalo searching from5 to 30 nmi out, and the Aurora searching from 30 – 60 nmi. We never saw the aircraft until we heard the Aurora boring straight in on us in a low-altitude pass. They had located us on radar from about 40nmi away. The Aurora made several orbits, dropping a sonobouy about 50 ft away to keep track of us, and then the Buffalo arrived on station. The Buffalo made several passes and then flew off to vector the Kolius to our location. They returned and dropped a container with a long poly line attached. We waited for the line to drift to us, and retrieved it as the lifeboat from the Kolius was coming to pick us up – we never got the container open, but later learned it contained a radio. The Kolius picked us up in their lifeboat, took us on board, and were fixing tea when the Laborador arrived overhead, dropped a pair of pararescue men, and then winched us all aboard for the flight to Comox.

Lessons learned: - I was definitely suffering from Boiled Frog Syndrome. As the wind and waves built, I had not appreciated that we were operating as close to the edge as we were. All of us understood the physics of downwind sailing and know that the apparent wind increases when the boat is slowed, making the situation worse. I should not have been so keen to keep heating it up for more speed and had it occurred to me at the time, I would have suggested we put a reef in the main – after all, if we’d have been going upwind in 20 kt we’d have been reefed.

- If it’s not accessible from the outside, you ain’t got it. Escape hatches are not just to let one get out of the boat, they also let you go back inside. Once we were all out of the boat, we didn’t dare risk hypothermia or being caught under in order to retrieve the handheld VHF, water, or anything else we might have needed. 3D was not built with either an escape hatch or a survival pod accessible from the outside. A VHF should be in the survival pod or even carried in a pocket. Speaking of pockets, if you found yourself on top of the boat with nothing but what you’re wearing, would you be able to survive on nothing but what you’ve got in your pockets?

- The other important use of the escape hatch is to ventilate the inside. There were gas fumes in the cockpit and inside the boat from gasoline floating on the water, and although the batteries were securely restrained, being upside down I would expect they would eventually leak and possibly create some fumes when the acid mixed with seawater.

- If you’re going to be found, it will be through electronic means –either a signal you put out or radar on a search aircraft. The ability to attract attention with flares is minimal at best. The flares only last a few seconds and the chances someone will be looking your way at the time is slim. Smoke dissipated immediately in the 20 kt winds. Had our EPIRB worked or had we had the VHF, we would have been picked up almost immediately by the competitors we could see sailing by.

- The ocean is a big place and even “coastal” sailors have to be prepared for the open ocean. When we got up in the morning we had drifted far enough out that we were out of sight of land. We might as well have been 100mi offshore as 37.

- Reef by the numbers going downwind. Although the point at which to reef will always be a judgment call, based on both wind and waves, there should still be a definite true windspeed that should be briefed to the crew on watch and the boat reefed at that point even if it seems to be handling the conditions OK.

- The adage about a multihull being its own life raft is TRUE. The race required either a life raft or survival suits to be on board, and survival suits were definitely the right choice for our multihull. When perched on top of the hull, we were perhaps 4’ above the water and stayed far drier than if we had been in a raft. The boat tended to lie beam on to the waves, and the amas acted as breakwaters. The water between ama and main hull was surprisingly still. Objects floating there tended to remain for some time, describing slow orbits within the tramps.

- Secure the daggerboard in the down position. We were lucky in that we had tied the board downhaul securely when sailing, so when the boat flipped we had something to hang onto. Had the board dropped back into the trunk, it would have been far more difficult to secure ourselves to the boat. Even simple tasks like putting on a survival suit or standing up to look for boats would have been far more difficult had we not been able to hang onto the board for balance.

- Things to put in the survival pod/kit: -- VHF radio -- tarp to put over the daggerboard & secure to amas as a tent. This would make the boat more visible and provide shelter from sun and rain. -- knife -- the only flares worth having are the parachute flares. The little 10-second flares are only good for participating in 4th of July fireworks displays. Even flare guns don’t provide much persistence. -- water.

- The Canadian Forces search and rescue capability is outstanding. The professionalism and treatment we received (warm clothes, food…) was first rate.

Other Information: Press release from the race committee.

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