Apart from Ted Jones's letter about suitable clothing, does the total silence which has followed the publication of Richard Gooderick's innocently titled article "Last tack before the Needles" (Bulletin No 179) mean that we have all been too horror struck to comment, or have most readers either skipped or missed what is arguably one of the most significant features ever to appear in the Bulletin?

Congratulations to Richard for going public on what was definitely a "worst case scenario" situation (except that it wasn't a scenario – it was for real) and describing a near fatal capsize in the Needles Channel in Force 5–6. All of us who sail small open centreboard boats should be asking how and indeed whether we could cope with a similar situation. Richard's succinct summary of observations and recommendations deserves wider comment and analysis. What is not so certain is whether Richard and his crew should be congratulated for undertaking a circumnavigation of the Wight given the forecast weather – and thus fairly predictable sea conditions.

The Needles Channel

The Needles Channel is only three quarters of a mile wide at its narrowest and is the focal choke point for the full force of the Solent tides (not for nothing is one particular area known ominously as "The Trap"). For readers who are not familiar with these sailing waters, the tidal streams can attain 5+ knots on a spring ebb and a "mere" 3 knots at neaps. With any wind blowing against this ebb a remarkably unpleasant sea will develop very quickly. Richard says it was about Force 5 possibly 6. That's quite enough to give even keel boat sailors something to think about. There have been occasions when the Yarmouth lifeboat, on service out in the English Channel, has opted to return right around the Wight (70 miles as a lifeboat goes) rather than face the Needles Channel.

Richard's comment about soon being able to bear away to run off down to St Catherines Point (another area of strong tidal streams) fails to mention or predict how the Wayfarer would cope with the heavy overfalls there, which the pilot books describe as being as bad as Portland in strong or gale force winds. Running in a heavy, confused and potentially unpredictable sea in a small open boat is not the most enjoyable or safest point of sailing, especially if you've been up since 0430 and have had a four hour beat in 20 knots of wind.

Weight Distribution

As a sailor in and from the Solent from 1949 until 1983, in boats ranging from 12ft to 12 tons, and latterly for 10 years in a National 18 (Surprise) aboard which my wife and I completed a circumnavigation of the Wight, I can identify closely with the conditions that Richard describes. Like the Wayfarer, the modern 18's are from Ian Proctor's drawing board and in many respects similar – though bigger and more stable, but shared the same fundamental disadvantage in the location of the onboard stowage. In Surprise our stowage for gear was in capacious bow and stern tanks (just like the Wayfarer) which kept everything dry but at the significant expense of boat performance.

The worst possible place to put any weight in a boat (any boat) is in the bow and/or stern. We actually drove Surprise under, like a submarine, in Force 6 off Salcombe, because the bow tank was so full of cruising gear that she would not lift to the waves. Thankfully we surfaced, upright and with the rig intact – having just stopped half a ton of boat, gear and nervous crew, all of which had been travelling at about 1000 feet per minute. This alarming experience forced me to completely redesign the interior layout of the boat to bring the main stowage as close to amidships as possible. For the owner of a strictly one design Wayfarer rebuilding the boat is not an option. Designers and owners of today's racing boats go to great efforts to keep the ends as light as possible.

Weight in the bow has a twofold disadvantage: it reduces freeboard where it is most needed and prevents the bow being buoyant (light) enough to lift to oncoming seas. Weight in the stern is quite literally a drag as it will immerse the transom below its designed level and prevent it lifting to a following sea. Overall the designed displacement is altered adversely with corresponding handling and performance penalties. A boat loaded like this will tend to "hobby-horse" through the waves. Crucially a boat will be much slower to tack and we should not lose sight of the fact that a buoyancy tank is only a buoyancy benefit when it is full of air. Every cubic foot of cruising gear stuffed into a buoyancy tank reduces the potential lift.

Weight in a boat should be concentrated as close as possible to amidships and crew weight should be effectively a homogenous mass - how often have we seen a small boat with the skipper in the stern and crew well forward? The message is get your act together. Watch the racing crews. Take all your cruising gear out of the bow and stern and restow it amidships and your boat will handle far better. Put a drysack or two on your Christmas wish list or try the military surplus stores for the industrial sized watertight flare stowage tubs. Or carry less gear - think backpack rather than floating caravan. Uffa Fox's famous dictum "Weight is only useful in a steamroller" (though he might have reasonably added – "or hanging over the weather gunwhale") should be permanently engraved on our minds.

Equipment Reliability

Richard's Wayfarer had three adult men as crew, quite sufficient to drive the boat in the prevailing conditions but of course they were carrying all their overnight and dry gear and an outboard and fuel – and presumably the usual anchor/warps and paddles etc and so the boat could not be described as being exactly in racing trim. Although he does not specifically say so, it is probably a fair assumption to bet that most of the gear was in the bow and stern tanks.

Modern racing boats (yachts and dinghies) tend to pare their gear weight down to the absolute minimum and then beef up the strength only if it fails. This won't do for cruising. There is another old maxim that deserves repeating and applying "Nothing SHOULD break and nothing WILL break" Especially relevant for dinghy cruising and yet articles in the bulletin regularly refer to various gear failures and breakages. The Wayfarer suffered two failures in 20 miles. Bad luck or bad management? A gear failure, any gear failure - especially in Force 5–6 or above, must be considered as prejudicial to boat safety.

If you cannot have implicit trust in the boat and gear then you simply shouldn't be out there. Go back to the dinghy park and spend as long as it takes to check everything and work out what could possibly come undone or break – then improve it so it can't. Be really pessimistic about everything. There are no half measures. "Good enough" simply is not good enough. Volvo cars once advertised "The Volvo philosophy - where we can use a bolt instead of a screw we do and where we can use a rivet in place of a bolt we do." Not a bad starting point for dinghy sailors.

We have driven Surprise through a 40 knot line squall in the Solent, across Christchurch Bay in the top end of Force 7, round Portland Bill four times and around the Wight in under 11 hours, down to the Helford and back from the Solent - and nothing ever broke. She is now a lugsail yawl rather than a bermudan sloop and we have different gear. We finally got our come-uppance in 1999 when racing in the Fowey Classics and the main halyard block – rated at 1000lb safe working load (that's almost twice the weight of the boat) exploded after a couple of strong wind gybes, depositing 185 square feet of Cornish cream coloured lugsail into the sea alongside us together with our hopes of winning the race. In fact it was the manufacturers integral swivel which parted - so as a caveat – treat with suspicion the all too common "square U" form of swivel joined with a smallish stainless rivet - however strong the catalogue says it is. A shock loading is not the same as a constant load. If you think it might break then replace it.

The Capsize

Back to Richard and the Wayfarer: with a centre mainsheet and double reefed sail did they really need the cascade kicker when sailing upwind? It obviously caused more problems than benefits. Once the boat had slowed in the muffed tack and/or was hit by an unlucky wave which led to the capsize, a new physical force would very quickly affect them: windage drag. With no dynamic energy or stability in the form of forward movement the sails and rig would instantly generate very considerable sideways drag. In a wind of 21 knots the pressure is approximately 2lbs per square ft which translates to a lot of drag for a stalled boat. Once the gunwhale had dipped under then the weight of water pouring downwards into the hull from the "high point" of the coaming would further speed the capsize until the worst force of all took over – the effect of the tide on the rig.

Once a sail is in a strong tidal stream it is virtually impossible to prevent a complete inversion. Richard is unequivocal - "the boat inverted immediately. There was no in-between..." Given that the density of water is 62.4 lbs per cubic foot and the water in the Needles Channel was moving at probably 3-4 knots, it is not surprising the rig was dragged under so quickly. When you eventually find yourself swimming alongside your upturned boat it's very helpful to have a centreboard to pull on and lever a boat upright: the Wayfarer's disappeared into the slot and from our own experience of our one and only capsize in Surprise (Falmouth Classics, strong ebb tide, big sea, right at the entrance and 27 knots of wind recorded) we also suffered a complete inversion. There was a loud crash and the 70lb cast alloy plate obeyed Newton's first law of gravity and disappeared back into the casing: WE COULD NOT RIGHT THE BOAT. All owners of ballasted or heavier than water plates should fit a preventer line in heavy weather to ensure that at least a handhold's worth of plate remains pointing skywards (or horizontal if you are lucky). Experience and hindsight are wonderful tutors. Wooden boards should have strong bungee to keep them pulled down and have a positive rope uphaul. This is called fail safe. Amazing what a difference a short length of bungee or polyester cord could make to your survival chances.

Recovery Challenges

Even if (or when) you do manage to get the boat upright the windage drag factor immediately hits again. Only this time it is exacerbated by the fact that tons of uncontrollable water are free moving in the boat. The moment the boat is upright the windage of a flogging sail (now wet as well) will heel the boat again and get an unstoppable mass of water shifting fast to leeward. Just in case you think TONS is an exaggeration, go and measure the interior capacity of your boat – and multiply the resulting cubic footage by 62.4lbs…you will be alarmed. Buoyancy right up under the gunwhales helps to stabilise a swamped boat but can speed inversion on the way down. Anything which restricts the movement of water in both the fore and aft direction and, crucially for swamped stability, the lateral plane, will help you to regain control of the situation.

One good solution is a longitudinal web extending the centreboard case fore and aft to join the bow tank to the stern. A length of terylene sailcloth makes a cheap and easily fitted barrier. Bow and stern tanks are more effective than equivalent volume buoyancy bags as they provide a physical barrier. Of course the quickest way to reduce the windage is to get the sails down but this is almost impossible when the boat is inverted though it should be possible in a 90 degree capsize position, provided your halliards are well stowed and are not fouled by other gear. Wet spinnakers on the loose are definitely a very serious hindrance to boat recovery - and that applies whether the spinnaker was set or stowed (come to think of it – was Richard's crew about to set a spinnaker in Force 5-6 for the downwind leg to St Catherines?). Spinnaker bags/stowage should have a capsize proof closure. It goes without saying that all other loose gear should be secured at all times.

Flares and Masthead Buoyancy

Richard's summaries are excellent: the heading "Capsize and you are dead" is succinct and chilling enough for us all to remember.

He couldn't reach his flares when the Wayfarer was inverted and it would be a brave crew who let go his handhold on the hull to dive under (try that with an inflated lifejacket) to locate flares. We couldn't get ours either when Surprise inverted – luckily, because we were racing, there was a very handy rescue boat. That wouldn't have been the case if the capsize had happened whilst cruising. As the DCA safety recommendations say "Capsizing is not an acceptable proposition…" Trouble is, in a small centreboard boat, capsizing is an ever present risk and the only way to face the risk is to be prepared for it. This is no time for being in denial – unless of course you have a hankering to unburden your soul on Davy Jones' couch.

Richard mentions masthead buoyancy. A fender is cheap and simple but visually (and in windage terms) less than beautiful. There is now a specially designed automatic inflating system on the market – but expensive. Does any member have first hand experience of the effectiveness or otherwise of masthead buoyancy in the sort of conditions described?

Finally congratulations to Richard for taking the trouble to write the article and share this alarming experience with us. Airing all these really vital points in his various conclusions and summaries should stimulate some more discussion. Let's do it before someone actually drowns.