– Heavy Weather - How A Catamaran Survives –
Alex Stone provides pointers to storm seamanship in a catamaran after a difficult Tasman crossing.
The Tasman can throw it at you. And it did. On an eastbound crossing from Bundaberg to New Zealand we survived two gales and one intense storm. We sailed nearly 400nm without rudders. We sat at sea anchor for a total of eight nights. A weather window that should have been open – no less than six prediction systems assured us of it, two weeks of westerlies, none more than 25kts – well, that weather window had slammed shut. Decisively.
Tasman: (synonym) unpredictable, challenging, arduous.