How to get 80 ft of mast under 65 ft of bridge.

[hutash]

It is not exactly rocket science. All you need to do is add weight until the length of the lines holding the bags is 65', or less.

Steering is no different then when healed hard over in a strong wind. I would assume any semi-competent sailor could deal with this.

That video needs to be edited down to about 15 seconds.

[leroy jenkins]

Thats cool and all, but was I the only person picturing someone recklessly and badassly sailing that shit under the bridge in high wind with the boat keeled way over just from wind?

[OSECS]

Thats cool and all, but was I the only person picturing someone recklessly and badassly sailing that shit under the bridge in high wind with the boat keeled way over just from wind?

Yes .....

[skiballs]

^^ hey gapers .
That's called talent down in VA beach , under the bridge tunnel .

[OSECS]

^^ hey gapers .
That's called talent down in VA beach , under the bridge tunnel .

Just which Va. beach bridge tunnel would that be ????

[skiballs]

The one VA beach , no fuck is no fuck .

[Tippster]

The VA Beach Bridge Tunnel (Really called the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel - OSEC's point I think) is what - 15 feet above the water max? Shit, so is the Hampton Roads one. It's Causeway _____ Tunnel _____ Causeway _____ (Tunnel ___ Causeway - for Ches.Bay.Bridge.Tunnel)

WTF are you talking about? All you have to do is go over the 2 Tunnel sections!

[iceman]

He's watching the Skins and doing shots I think.

[skiballs]

The VA Beach Bridge Tunnel is what - 15 feet above the water max? Shit, so is the Hampton Roads one. It's causeway_____Tunnel_____Causeway_____(Tunnel___Cau seway - for Ches.Bay.Bridge.Tunnel)

WTF are you talking about? All you have to do is go over the 2 Tunnel sections!

A little local knowledge ( is what ) gang .

22' cats at full sail under the bridge is fun .

[leroy jenkins]

A little local knowledge ( is what ) gang .

22' cats at full sail under the bridge is fun .

Take video post here. It will be far more interesting than the vid that started this thread.

[BmillsSkier]

Brings back a hazy but funny memory of a sail out Ft Walton Beach at a parrothead party. Think maggots with funny hats. 'Captain' was a bit clueless on how carefully you want to follow channel markers. Sandstuck with tide going out. Got pulled out by a powerboat hooked to the main halyard at mast top. Could have gone way bad. Wasn't my card on the deposit, so I kept drinking, and am still.

That sounds like a good story back at the dock. Definitely could have gone very bad. How was it you had no other lines or tow points to use?

Steering is no different then when healed hard over in a strong wind. I would assume any semi-competent sailor could deal with this.

I would assume any person on the internet calling out semi-competent sailors would know that it's spelled "heeled" not "healed" over.

[L7]

That and the other difference of steering 'heeled' over in a strong wind is the lack of that strong wind. Never seen a sailboat of any size under power, sails down heel over in the least while steering with rudder alone. Mind you I've never seen it done with several hundred pounds of ballast swinging from the top of the mast.

[Pinner]

Cool video from 1:20 to 1:30.

The remainder was annoying as hell.

[Mulletizer]

Fucking hell - you guys are skiers. You play with gravity. That's all the skipper is doing... Some of the comments in this thread are literally painful. Hutash is, I think, on the money though. Here's how it works.

The bags of water on the halyard are there to tip the boat over - that's obvious, right? The only tricky part of the manoeuvre is starting the boat heeling - naturally the keel just wants to keep it standing upright. My guess is they did something to push the dangling bags [heh Beavis] away from the yacht (probably push them out with a spinnaker pole, maybe only a boat-hook), creating a sideways force on the mast top that makes the boat heel. That sideways force is counterbalanced by the mass of the keel which is constantly trying to bring the boat upright again.

Anyway, as soon as the heel is significant enough those big, heavy bags of water try to pull the boat over onto its side; to control that happening they put lines around the bags back to a winch on the deck. Those lines mean they can control how far from the deck the bags swing, manage the force they exert (the further from the deck they swing, the greater the force they exert) and therefore how steeply they pull the boat over. If the boat heels too far they bring the bags closer to the deck, they exert less force so the counter-balancing mass of the keel brings the mast more upright.

The skipper needs to do some math to figure out the the heel required to make the boat fit under the bridge, the mass of water required to heel his boat over under control and, as Hutash menioned, the lengths of lines. The halyard needs to be short enough not to dump the bags in the drink when the boat heels, once you know that you can calculate the length of the line from deck to bags that indicates the boat is heeled correctly to fit under the bridge. There's a bit of turning force calculation involved, and some Pythagoras (sure, it's not a perfect right angle triangle, but it's close enough here). I learned that shit at junior school, as I guess most here did.

Gravity is predictable so the whole thing is fairly straightforward. Currents and gusts of wind could make things a tad more complex. Dumping the bags in the water wouldn't necessarily tip the boat over - but if badly submerged they might act like a drogue and pull the boat off course which could be an issue and if that got out of hand they'd likely pull the mast down closer to the water. Pretty easy to avoid by loosing the halyards if it all went wrong though. The steering would not be dissimilar to steering under sail.

[hutash]

I would assume any person on the internet calling out semi-competent sailors would know that it's spelled "heeled" not "healed" over.

I don't know fuck all about sailing, and had no idea if it was heeled or healed (I had a 50/50 chance and got it wrong,) but that was exactly my point, this was just a simple 7th grade prealgerba problem, not some in-depth "salt of the sea", "I've been sailing 50 years" kind of problem. The only real sailor question was how much weight cam the masthead hold, but I suspect an 80' mast underfull sail carries a fucken whole lot more stress and weight then those bags.

[Ted Striker]

Fucking hell...

I already said all that, but more succinctly.

[Huck_Schmuck]

Wait. So did the plane take off or not?

[BmillsSkier]

I don't know fuck all about sailing, and had no idea if it was heeled or healed (I had a 50/50 chance and got it wrong,) but that was exactly my point, this was just a simple 7th grade prealgerba problem, not some in-depth "salt of the sea", "I've been sailing 50 years" kind of problem. The only real sailor question was how much weight cam the masthead hold, but I suspect an 80' mast underfull sail carries a fucken whole lot more stress and weight then those bags.

I think you missed the "winky" at the end of my post.

[hutash]

^^^fucking iPhone...the damn screen is to small.

[back bowl]

Thats cool and all, but was I the only person picturing someone recklessly and badassly sailing that shit under the bridge in high wind with the boat keeled way over just from wind?

I regularly run through a little channel between two islands on lake champlain that, during the summer, I can make in a west or southwest wind b/c I can heel my boat, but can't make without it. But that's due to depth, so not nearly as exciting...

[Mulletizer]

I already said all that, but more succinctly.

Dude, you did, but you have to spell it out to silence the morans.

[CazMan26]

That bridge he went under is the old Pungo ferry crossing on the inland water way. That guy was on his way south, probably for the season, or just heading out for a day of sailing. Whichever, that was really cool to watch. Never seen that done before. . .!