My boat is a self built Highlander 14 called Orinoco which is a Paul Fisher design. It is 14' by 5' and undecked. I completed her in 1998 and sailed her mainly on my nearby lake. I had always intended that I should carry out a practise capsize to make sure that the buoyancy was correctly distributed and to make sure I could right her again. However like most good intentions, it got put off and put off until one day fate took a hand. Well actually it was a lack of preparation on my part, together with a stupid error, which caused an entirely unplanned capsize drill.

I was sailing single handed and had failed to tie the ends of the jib sheets together - this little trick ensures that you can always reach the leeward jib sheet from the windward rail because it is tied to the windward jib sheet which is within reach. Half way through a tack I realised that I would not be able to reach the jib sheet on the other tack and reached across the boat to grab it, putting my weight in entirely the wrong place. I realised as soon as I had done it that this was a seriously bad move... but by then it was too late, water was pouring over the gunwale. I was surprised and disappointed at how quickly the boat completely inverted. I managed to right it easily enough but as the boat rotated I tried to pull myself in before it was fully upright. This was successful but meant that my weight was on the hull before the lower gunwale was above the water. Consequently the hull was pushed lower into the water and scooped up so much water that it was above the thwarts and was very unstable.

Before I could do anything the boat went over again. This time it floated half inverted with the mast horizontal and at the water line. Again I went round to pull on the centreboard but this time waited until the gunwale had cleared the water before jumping in. Again the boat capsized but this time I noticed the real problem - the mainsheet was still cleated preventing the mainsail from spilling the wind. On the third attempt having released the main I successfully kept the boat upright but even with my attempts not to scoop up unnecessary water there was a lot of it in there with me. It took a good 10 minutes (although it seemed like more) with a big bucket to get the majority of the water out. During this time the boat was sufficiently stable on a lake with no waves but in a sea the amount of free water sloshing about could have presented a significant stability problem. I also discovered that several items in the boat had not been tied down or stowed and my sunglasses and rowlock had sunk straight to the bottom, whilst a waterproof jacket had floated off downwind. Practical Boat Owner magazine have a routine feature where readers relate some near disaster and then identify the lessons which they learnt from the experience. At the risk of being accused of plagiarism I think this is a very worthwhile approach and that we could gain much from doing likewise.

Lessons learnt ....

• Open boats capsize very quickly once water is over the gunwale. I think this is because the centre of buoyancy shifts dramatically and suddenly once water is over the gunwale. Consider the situation in figure 1 which shows the gunwale immediately before swamping. Once the gunwale in under water the part of the boat from the thwart to the gunwale now provides no buoyancy as in figure 2. This represents a loss of buoyancy from where it is needed most and since the forces which are trying to tip the boat over (usually the wind) are unlikely to diminish, a capsize is almost inevitable.

• Think about the effect of your weight on the boat as it starts to capsize. On reflection I now realise why Orinoco inverted so rapidly. As soon as I felt the boat started to capsize I tried to use an old trick which I had used many times in racing single handed boats. If you are quick and can get over the windward gunwale and onto the centreboard, you can right the boat without even getting wet! However dinghies like the Laser or Streaker have very wide side decks which are all buoyancy. Hence my weight in these boats would have been directly above the centre of buoyancy. In an open decked boat this is not the case, all I succeeded in doing was to pull the boat over almost on top of myself and caused the boat to get into a position from which it rolled to fully inverted. Figure 3 is intended to show this.

• Stow or tie down all loose items - you don't know when a capsize may occur. I only lost a few items of little importance (although the loss of the rowlocks caused me some difficulties on the next outing). However I realised afterwards how close I came to losing the anchor, I should have at least tied the bitter end of the warp to the boat but hadn't!

• Give some thought to how you will get back into the boat. The Highlander does not have very much freeboard and is consequently quite easy to get back into from the water once it has righted. This is an area of compromise - too much freeboard makes it difficult to get back into the boat but too little makes it easy to pull the boat back over as you try to climb in.

• Always have a method of bailing large quantities of water quickly. The DCA recommendation to always carry a bucket is fully justified. I suggest it should be a big bucket. and finally...

• Consider adding features to prevent an inversion. This is also in reply to Sophie Annetts’ article in the last newsletter. One way to prevent an inversion is with masthead buoyancy. Boats like the Wayfarer have had this available for many years as a patch at the head of the sail. The amount of buoyancy required is quite low due to the leverage provided by the length of the mast. The disadvantage is the increased windage. My boat has a wooden mast, which is also hollow, so I had hoped it would provide enough buoyancy to avoid an inversion, I now know that it doesn't! I have since considered adding buoyancy at gunwale level (similar to the way the Roamer dinghy achieves its capsize resistance). Large fenders tied to the gunwales would probably provide a lot of buoyancy and would also serve a dual function.

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