I sailed a Vic-Maui and a Pan Am Clipper Cup in 1982 on a Britt Chance designed 54’ Boat named “Glory”. I was one of the foredeck crew and a watch captain.
The owner’s design brief may have mentioned the desire for PNW style light air performance but; when that boat went faster than 14 knots it became unpredictable in which direction the bow would go when the surf ended. Ergo: “You take a chance with Chance.” The 1982 Vic-Maui included some very light air and several days of tropical storm reinforced trade winds in the 25 to 35 TWS range. One dark and stormy night, flying the “chicken shute” my watch (3 of us) experienced those night time sailing conditions that are like “Mr. Toads wild ride”. The instrument delay made them useless so we used the compass to determine “home base” as a course that was usually not by the lee and the lighted Windex for a general idea of the apparent wind angle. My standard instructions for the helmsman in such conditions is, if a broach/roundup/spin out anticipated, is to rotate towards the pole. A controlled spin out towards the pole is often a quick recovery vs a round down. On the windiest night over a 4 hour watch we spun out 3 to 4 times. So, our watch ends and the next watch comes on deck. I drove an extra 10 minutes to allow the new watch some time to acclimatize and pass on some of what we had learned. I handed the wheel over to the resident “rock star” sailmaker and moved forward to the center cockpit. My watch decided to stay on deck as the conditions were deteriorating and expected the call to douse the spinnaker soon. A short time later the “rock star” totally lost the plot a drove deep by the lee. The boat rounded down so suddenly the helmsman ended up ass over tea kettle to leeward. The mainsail, in its attempt to gyre broke the preventer which then got hung up on a coffee grinder handle pinning the main to windward. The mast was slapping the bigger wave tops. As I was closest to the fouled preventer I pulled out my rigging knife got real low and cut the taut line. The mainsail immediately swung to leeward allowing the boat to pop upright. With the boat upright the spinnaker pops full and the boat accelerates quickly. Unfortunately the helmsman did not have time to correct his helm spinning the boat into an immediate round up thus completing a full mid-ocean “banana split. As the gyrations tossed the crew belowdecks out of their bunks the owner/skipper called for the spinnaker douse. We spent the next 36 hours under twin headsails. The 1982 Clipper Cup was also windier than typical which also didn’t favor this particular Britt Chance design. On YouTube there is a film about the 1982 Clipper Cup. In the first minute or so “Glory” passes through the screen. It’s a white boat with multiple blue stripes. Up on the bow I can be seen doing something with the sail. Martin DeYoung Calypso 1971 C&C 43 Port Ludlow/Seattle On Dec 8, 2021, at 6:13 PM, David Risch via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote: Britt Chance was a one horse pony Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone Get Outlook for Android<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Faka.ms%2FAAb9ysg&data=04%7C01%7C%7Cfee2f33aff7f4b03761808d9bab96d8f%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637746127832501637%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=JEaTlzhXBcGfrrLh0GAeuLJLWJqTipnCCNIaLgb67EE%3D&reserved=0> Thanks to all of the subscribers that contributed to the list to help with the costs involved. If you want to show your support to the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray Thanks - Stu
Thanks to all of the subscribers that contributed to the list to help with the costs involved. If you want to show your support to the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray Thanks - Stu
