Precision 18 LOST!! Let's talk Sailboat Safety

[@By_YHWH.Gal47]

Thank you for explaining weather / lee helm and how to manage it. Great info for a newer P18 owner.

[@ColoradoSailing]

Highly recommend you check out this video on centerboard control…it talks more in depth about lee helm and adjusting CLR on the P-18. kzbin.info/www/bejne/en3IYX6IYtmmf7ssi=R3EQ9cpFYl58bgco

[@scottpowell7713]

thank you Dave. Some would feel ashamed or maybe even a little angry about their sinking being gone over in this way. I, however , thank you did a great job of getting all the points talked about in the sinking of my boat. I can say that when most think about capsizing....they don't think that it is going to happen in high winds with waves, or even to them! I have gone over and over the "if I had only done this" and the reality and the truth of it all was, I was complacent and over confident in my sailing ability and that attitude along with never having seen how fast water knocks you out of the boat and how fast it enters an open companionway led to the sinking of a fantastic boat. Thank you for getting the word out on what to do & what to look out for while on the water. if your vid saves just one life , then I fill that my loss will have had meaning. Keep the great videos of the p 18 coming out! scott

[@ColoradoSailing]

Thanks brother! The power of wind and water can definitely humble the best of us. Tried to address the loss of the two boats in a respectful and educational way. Glad you and the wifey came out of it safely! 🙏

[@huntsail3727]

Good tips, will work for most boats, particularly trailer sailors. Great job!

[@ColoradoSailing]

Many thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. 😁

[@robmacneal3915]

You know my sailing season is over when i start watching sailing videos . Thanks for your post always good info i have got to catch up on all your videos

[@ColoradoSailing]

Many thanks! I plan to keep the videos coming every Tuesday 😁

[@richardroisman16]

😅😊😊😅😅😊😊😊😊😊

[@glennmitzel4726]

Nice discussion, Dave! I Plan to practice some of these tips later this week.

[@joecraven2034]

Fantastic stuff! I'm glad I subscribed. I definitely learned a couple of important tips. Thanks.

[@ColoradoSailing]

Many thanks! Glad you found it helpful…and thanks for subscribing!! ⛵️

[@robmacneal3915]

Grear video all good info, learning some refreshing skills never hurt anybody we all need to know ore limitations another season in the books

[@odysseyofjason]

Nice video Dave. Sad to hear someone lost their boat, that must have been a terrible experience. I learned something new by watching this. I was thinking the weather helm increases so much as the boat heels over just because of the increased power on the main and the less effective angle of the rudder. Your diagrams helped me understand how the center of effort becomes offset adding to the effect. Sailing seems so simple on the surface but there are so many things going on all at once, each one affecting the others, it's incredibly complex.

[@georgewashington7444]

FFDave great work getting this info out as a lesson for all small sailboat sailors. I had a P18 last season she was my 6th sailboat (I put 80# additional pounds of ballast in mine under floor) and sailed her 39 days including 10 on Lake Erie. The most wind was 26 Kts with double reef main and a bit of Jib she handled perfectly and hove too well. The P18 in a skilled sailors hands is a great performer. To the novice she is also very forgiving but reef reef reef and have mainsheet ready to be released.! I have a rule…if reef is in the companion way is closed. The cockpit seat through hull compartment MUST be sealed off in a P18! Roger Taylor (MingMing) trailer sailor Arctic explorer (5…70+ Day continuous day sails from UK to Arctic) calculated @26 cuft of foam for floating his 2200# craft if you dig around on his website you can see his calculations. This works out to 14.5 Cuft for a P18. If you want to sail in heavy weather in order to make you a better sailor these small boats must be made unsinkable. It is possible with some ingenuity. Of course at the end of last season a beautiful Montgomery 17 which I’ve been looking for-for years popped up for sale and I basically swapped boats. The Monty is quite a bit beefier and ballasted in construction and better suited for Lake Erie. She will have the necessary flotation installed in the event of a swamping. The incident which you made this video about has a “chain” of events leading to the sinking I confess I HAVE DONE THEM ALL in my sailing years! I believe if the Mainsheet was not tied offf and Companion way was closed we would have a interesting sailors tale and nothing more. Contributing factors not known? Was cockpit seat through hull sealed? Were cockpit drains free and clear? (Installing bigger ones is always a good idea!)

[@tylerbrown4483]

On weather helm: in all but the most severe conditions I generally like to maintain my heading as the boat tries to round up. I find that unless I was already in a very outboard position trying to balance the heel of the boat, the simple act of steering the straight course moves my body mass outboard far enough to maintain stable heel through the gust. One of the reasons I love a tiller. If you move with the tiller your mass is always moving in the right direction to keep the boat upright. You shouldn’t ever find yourself in a position where you need to lean your weight away from the tiller while simultaneously pushing the tiller away from your body to keep the boat straight. As an example, the other day I was on the harbor when a squall rolled in, and the first indication I had was a stiff gust from about 5-7kt winds immediately up to about 20kt. I had been on a beam reach sitting on the low side (starboard) to induce a little extra heel. When the gust hit she immediately started to heel over and round up, I leaned forward and pushed the tiller hard to port and the simple leaning of my mass to the centerline kept the heel under control and allowed a quick transition to the high side (port) to ride out the gust.

[@ColoradoSailing]

There are definitely different schools of thought and preferences on helming the boat. I typically steer to maintain a relatively stable heel angle through the gusts (not always successfully), and maintaining course is of little concern. That’s partly because gusts also often involve 90 to 180 degree wind shifts at my lake…and the lack of boat traffic. In more congested waters I might not be able to alter course as easily. When the winds are a bit more steady (gusty but not shifty) it is really nice to jet across the lake on a straight course! ⛵️

[@tylerbrown4483]

@@ColoradoSailing yeah I sail on a pretty large coastal harbor where the wind doesn’t really shift that much in a gust and traffic is more of a concern. Or at the very least the harbor is a big place and I’m trying to get A to B without a ton of weaving.

[@ColoradoSailing]

@@tylerbrown4483 Yeah, local conditions rule for sure. I normally sail 6 to 8 hours at a time on a 5.3 sq mi lake. The marina is never more than 2.5 miles away! So I cover a lot of the same ground over and over.

[@By_YHWH.Gal47]

Question regarding the two sinkings... Was the cockpit locker a factor?

[@ColoradoSailing]

Possibly on the first one. But definitely not on the most recent one. A factor in both cases was being over-canvassed for the wind conditions. In the first one, the mainsheet was accidentally tightened instead of being released as the boat heeled over in a big gust (during a small craft advisory). On the second one, the mainsheet was cleated off and the boat was under autotiller control. The boat was sailing downwind in very light air but the mainsail was set to the stern quarter (like for a beam reach) when suddenly hit from behind by a squall. The boat heeled and spun around, throwing both occupants into the lifelines on the low side. The boat couldn’t right itself with the extra weight on the lifelines. On that one the locker was not a factor.

[@coalfieldbeelovergerald3687]

Great and appropriate video. Before I do real comment let me watch at least once more .. I need to crew on the content ! 👍 cheers 🥂 Nick

[@johnryan2193]

Just found your video, would ballast be an issue with these lovely little boats. ?

[@ColoradoSailing]

It meets the “30% of displacement” rule for sailboats (350 lbs on a 1,100 lbs boat). But, it’s not down deep. The P-18 also has an extremely high sail area to displacement ratio of 21.81. So if you are caught out in heavy wind with full mainsail, you will be in major trouble. If the human ballast is on the wrong side (or people slip/fall to the low side)…she will also heel pretty hard. I’ve sailed mine single-handed in 30 mph winds (with double reefed mainsail).

[@tonybarnes3858]

Thanks for this. Do you have a preferred source or sources for sailing incident and accident reports? Favorite sites/apps for conditions reports?

[@ColoradoSailing]

Colorado is not a sailing haven, so they don’t even issue small craft advisories here. I use 3 websites for wind forecasts and usually assume it’ll be at least as bad as whichever has the most severe forecast (Colorado has notoriously bad forecasting due to the mountains). I use: WindAlert, WillyWeather and Windfinder. On WindAlert always select the “blend” button otherwise it hits a paywall.

[@tonybarnes3858]

@@ColoradoSailing Thanks.

[@polderfischer8565]

Sinking is the worst case.... So i want to be prepared. My 18ft has build in floating compartments. I hope she will not hit the ground ;-) Greetings from cold northern germany

[@ColoradoSailing]

Unfortunately the Precision 18 does not have airtight spaces within it and also lacks floatation foam. If enough water gets into the cabin…it will sink.

[@polderfischer8565]

@@ColoradoSailing Thanks for replying! Is it possible/neccessary to mount some foam into the hull? Have a great summer!

[@ColoradoSailing]

@@polderfischer8565 by my calculations, I’d need 20 cubic feet of floatation foam which is a lot of area. I was thinking about maybe adding some 46L Optimist buoyancy air bags. But I’d need 12 of them to float the boat. In the meantime, I have a self-inflating life raft for worst case. I sail in cold mountain waters so definitely don’t want to be swimming…

[@polderfischer8565]

@@ColoradoSailing Hmmm, i would say that the hull without mast and ballast will float because it has enough volume and a specific weight like water. So you just have to counter the weight of the keel and mast? Maybe 180 liters will be enough? That is not very much, and if you substract the volume of the keel it may be way less. In my Kelt 5.50 is one compartement in the stern and one in the bow region filled with foam. They claim "unsinkable". Everything helps: balsa-core, drybags and woodstructures. I ma not a swimfan either ;-)

[@polderfischer8565]

Maybe i am wrong: the density of glasfibre seems to be higher tan i thought. Althoug my kajaks do not go to the ground....

[@theresnobodyhere5778]

that boat has inherent built in dangers that will make it flood and sink if water comes on over the combings when its healed over at point of broach the cockpit fills and pours into companionway opening which is lower than the cockpit seats also one of your videos before shows rear hatches in cockpit lead into quarter berths those issues need addressed before going on the water i would never go on that boat ,what is weight of centre board has it got built in ballast ,when it gets a blow down the sails depower instantly and it should spring up right within seconds if ballast is sufficient and theres good water tight buoyancy compartments forward and aft should never sink

[@ColoradoSailing]

In 2020 alone the USCG received 267 accident reports involving sailboats. Many, many Catalina 22s have been lost and numerous large cruisers (Bavaria 390, Match 42, Fast 42, Beneteau 40.7) have suffered keel separation and sank just in the last few years. Sailing is dangerous. Sailboats under 26’ in length account for the vast majority of sailing fatalities. For the P-18, two boats lost out of nearly 800 over 39 years is a pretty good record. In the latest incident, the two people aboard did not see it coming and were thrown to the low side (about 400 lbs of weight) with the autotiller engaged and the mainsheet cleated and this prevented the boat from righting. In calm state, the P-18 companionway does sit well above the waterline, but as with any boat on its side being slammed by wind-driven waves, the companionway is vulnerable to flooding if not closed. The P-18 has 350 lbs of lead in her shoal draft keel and the centerboard has a steel plate that weighs 65 lbs, but in the right (or maybe wrong) conditions, sea state and loading the ballast unfortunately can be overcome.

[@tylerbrown4483]

You have to recognize the Precision 18 for what it is. It’s right in the transition zone from the smaller boats that are primarily controlled by the weight of the crew, and the larger boats that are primarily controlled by the weight of the keel. The P18 is right in the middle. Especially with a crew of 2. It is very important that you heed the rules of dinghy sailing in tough weather and not rely on the principles of keelboat sailing. Stay on the high side, don’t cleat the sheet, and if you get knocked down, bail out. I promise there’s no way to sink this boat without either the starboard hatch opening and filling with water (an issue which has been addressed on most hulls) or getting a large mass of crew hanging off the low side lifelines in a knockdown. I’ve had her heeled well past 90 degrees by tying down the end of the mast for a centerboard pivot bolt inspection and the water does not come anywhere near the companionway hatch. Further, when I released the mast, she righted herself very quickly. She has a range of stability of about 150 degrees, so if the hatches are battened in rough water even a fully capsized boat will likely self-right by wave action alone. If the waves weren’t big enough to right her you’d more than likely be able to right her dinghy style by standing on the gunwale and grabbing the keel. The ballast is a 350# lead fixed shoal draft keel. The centerboard is not ballast and is only there for stability to windward and controlling weather helm. It’s one of my favorite features about the boat because, unlike the C22, ina knockdown you’d not be dependent on the swinging centerboard staying in place. Many C22s have gone down because they knocked over and the swinging keel lock mechanism failed under its own weight in that unusual attitude, causing it to slam back to the stow position and immediately cancel its own righting power. That’s not possible on a P-18

[@theresnobodyhere5778]

@@tylerbrown4483 you hit the nail on the head ,its dinghy class and it will blow down easy ,you not having fun or sailing it right if you dont blow down a couple of times everytime you go out, also pulling it over on a sunny day in a flat calm shallow bay is no test in real world conditions if your on the sea and have two or three foot waves wind over tide wind on the beam when it blows over it takes seconds to fill the cockpit with a hundred gallon of water so now it rights with 600 lbs of water inside cockpit and flooding into companion way and rear hatch,i would nt go on any sailboat no matter what size it is if theres cockpit hatches that are not sealed and lead down into quarter berths or cabin never set foot on them tell the owner address those issues and say not today , it will never sink ,if water does,nt get in ,REAR hatch is what lets it in ,and if it had enough buoyancy it still would,nt sink even if water was full up to the side combings and bottom window line

[@TTM-GEB]

I really like your videos... But I wish you would spend $20 on a "Lapel Microphone"... It would seriously enhance them...

[@ColoradoSailing]

I don’t think any of my cameras are compatible with a lapel mic. I’m using a Canon EOS Rebel T3 (2011), a Kodak PlaySport Zx5 underwater camera (2012) and a $39 Amazon dashcam for my vids!! 😂😂😂

[@JayPoe80]

@@ColoradoSailing simple wired lapel mic with 1/8" jack should work with the DSLR. Rode Wireless Go would be easier. ;) Thanks for the video.

[@roadboat9216]

Thanks. All good information. I don’t know these boats. They look nice. But are they not positively buoyant? Can they not self right in a reasonable amount of time? I know that this is no a boat to cross oceans in but? They look like a ballasted keel boat.

[@ColoradoSailing]

The P-18 is a ballasted boat-it has 350 lbs of lead in the shoal draft keel. This meets the minimum ballast rule of 30% of displacement (displacement is 1,100 lbs). The P-18 was designed to be self-righting. However, it is a lightweight boat and 300-400 lbs of poorly placed human ballast can overwhelm the keel and prevent righting after a knockdown. The boat does not have positive foam floatation.

[@roadboat9216]

@@ColoradoSailing ah. Ok got it. Thanks