More skin on frame kayak catamaran madness, just a wee bit overpowered here…
This is a case of conditions dramatically exceeding the forecast (forecast 16 gusting to 21, reality 25 gusting to 45) and we had a long conference that morning talking about risks and contingencies before making the decision to go for it. We only had to make 3 miles to get to somewhere we could safely get off the river and worst case scenario we could swim to shore where there was a highway and cell service.
For the first half we did get reasonable shelter from the waves but coming around a point we slammed into 3 mph of current, some crazy gusts, and 3 foot steep waves right up against the rocks and breaking waves twice that size 20 feet to our left.
This is twice the sail area you want in these conditions, but it gave me an invaluable opportunity to look for weak points in the system. Here you can see the sails twisting forward and spilling wind in the gusts which is exactly how it’s supposed to work, and in the extreme gusts the sheet actually starts slipping in the cleats which isn’t something I planned but I’m considering leaving it that way because I think it provides a bit of insurance against breaking the masts.
We had both rudders down and canoe paddles at the ready to protect against broaching and the only thing keeping us from continually surfing here is the pressure wave that builds up between the kayaks.
I would do this again but not against this much current and definitely with smaller sails, and probably not with Liz. I’m extremely curious how the set up would handle the large breaking waves further out on all points of wind, but I’m not sure how to set safety for that situation. Kayakers couldn’t pace us and there’s very few people that can handle these conditions in a kayak and provide assistance to others at the same time.
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