[Rhodes22-list] Cockpit Under Water

[Roger Pihlaja]

Joe,

The sailing performance of the Rhodes 22 is very sensitive to trim, both
port/starboard as well as fore/aft.

I presume with that kind of party on board & from your question that you
didn't have a skilled crew that could sail the boat "actively".

The Rhodes 22 sails best if it can be sailed as level as possible
port/starboard & as nearly on the waterline fore/aft as possible.  In this
respect, the R-22 behaves very much like a big sailing dingy.  You needed to
put as many crew as possible up onto the windward rail & distribute them
fore/aft to keep the boat in as level trim as possible.  If there are waves,
the crew in front are going to get wet - this is considered to be part of
the fun.  The problem if you pile everybody into the cockpit is that the
stern of the boat does not have sufficient floatation for that much weight.
The boat trims down by the stern.  The wetted surface of the hull under the
cockpit behaves like the flaps on an airplane wing when the boat is trimmed
down by the stern.  This large wetted surface area causes a lot of drag
which tends to prevent the boat from achieving sufficient velocity to punch
thru waves.  In addition, the R-22 develops weather helm when heeled, which
tends to limit the boat's ability to go to weather.  It sounds like you made
both mistakes & thus experienced the R-22 at its worst.

If you had put your crew up onto the windward rail & properly distributed
their live ballast fore/aft; then, you would have been able to carry much
more sail area to keep the boat moving, able to punch thru waves, and under
control.  At times, you might have even started to plane!  Everybody has
more fun at surf city.  Try it - you'll like it!

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ware, Joseph W." <joseph_ware at merck.com>
To: "List Rhodes (E-mail)" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 11:40 AM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Cockpit Under Water


> I was out this past week with 7 people on board.  4 adults and three kids.
> We had tons of wind, and had the genny furled from 100% down to 10% and
> still brought water over the rail, as well as across the bow.  My question
> is, with this many people in the boat, we had water in the cockpit all
day.
> Is this normal, and is there any way to change the balance forward to
> eliminate the stern from sitting so low?
>
> Joe
> s/v Whisper
>
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