Haven't seen anything posted from the Ducks in the Philippines. Are you guys ok ?

Don

Can you describe your fish retrieval system, and post some pics or drawings.
The workers at the yard do not seem to know how your method could be adapted to my boat. For those readers not in the know, my boat is the first 462 Motorsailer.

I see that Hugh has stern mounted holders for the fish and presumably a Beebee like trailing line retrieval system.

I am thinking of having Bill add poles to my boat but given my past experience retrieving the fish there just must be a better way.

Also, what are you using for the fish? The Koldstrand ones are very heavy and part of my past retrieving problem. OTOH, the plywood ones do not seem so rugged.
Perhaps an aluminium fish with a lead or 304 SS nose?

So you used the fish in addition to the stabalisation provided by the sails.

Don,

Thanks for the post. I'm very glad to hear how well ICE sails and that you are happy with the rig you used and how the hull handles. I know there was some speculation at the yard on how that would turn out. (the custom rig that is)

The Palmer clan is looking forward to receiving our sedan, hopefully soon.

I plan to upgrade the sailing system to something a little more robust than the included version, though still more than a few steps down from what you have.

Sorry in all the trips I didn't get a chance to meet you.


Hugh

Yes we survived...ICE is a great boat and thanks for the emails from friends...sorry it has taken awhile to tell about it but many things going on in our lives...

Just read some comments on the Passagemaking under power site about our trip and one guy suggesting that a 462 cannot make 9kts for any length of time?? and thought I have to sort this out.....

For those that follow ICE you know it is a seahorse 462 and I designed and installed my own "southern Ocean ketch rig" ( the first of its type) from Australia. This trip HK to Subic was the first real sea trial for the boat. I am a sailor all my life and have spent a bit of time at sea. I have been intimately involved with the building of the boat making something like 16 trips to the yard over the three year build process and I am extremely happy with everything about the boat. I had always assumed that it would sail OK as the hull is ballanced but I was unsure of it's ultimate stabillity as we had fitted 2 tonne of ballast (SHM standard Motor sailor Ballast) as my rigs are very heavy....Before this trip I felt sure we would be adding ballast.

Anyway when everything was ready to depart HK..we even polished the prop with wet & dry paper... I was happy to say that ICE would handle anything that the ocean could throw at it...I have never left any port in any of my boats without having this level of confidence....I was unsure of preformance, but everything was well prepared and we had a good crew with Dave Nagle and Rose the wife of a friend in HK.

Margie had to return to Australia, so became my one and only safety net twice a day on the iridium with weather relays....we new about the Typhoon before we left, but it was way off and not expected to head our way, so decided to go accepting the small but real risk from it.

First two days were great with good 7kt preformance in varying moderate to light conditions. As soon as I recieved the first indication that the typhoon may be on the program, I made a decision ,purely based on the Hong Kong forecast Margie gave me and decided to Head to Santiago Island...with an eta 30hrs later , 14 hours before the typhoon would be overhead if it hit us.

We then recieved lots of advice and opinions from all and sundry, on what we should do ,because there was a massive amount of confusion and uncertanty from various forecasters as to where it would go. I have been chased by two Phillipine Typhoons in the past (and a hurricane in the atlantic) and simply listened to the HK forcasters from Margie.. ..forgot the rest and once I had decided on a plan stuck to it regardless.

Now for the fun part...time/speed was relivant, so with a 25-28 true beam wind and 2 sometimes 3 mtr beam sea and 2100 rpm on the dial, ICE was easily making consistant comfortable averages of 9.5kts romping along...with the engine in neutral, we easily made 4.5 kts and the helm was completely ballanced. with the beam seas and occasional roll, the windward fish surfaced a couple of times so using the dedicated fish recovery system, it was simply removed without any trouble at all in a couple of minutes and no manual lifting or exertion without the fish having any chance of touching the hull while we were moving forward at 3 to 4 kts . ICE was VERY stiff to my absolute and pleasant surprise and needs no futher ballast. At all times the Raymarine pilot was just ticking over..cruising and not working hard at all...all the custom systems and features that we had put into ICE were perfect and made life easy...the Stidd was perfect. The ketch rig is, in my mind (if you can afford it) the only way to go...perfectly ballanced, easy to reef at anytime by one person and I am confident that it will give me many options should I ever have to face the ultimate storm.We also have a staysail/storm jib.

If I was not in a hurry I would have had all sail and up and 1400 rpm and been doing about 8.5 kts kts. Seeing ICE in many different conditions now, I would say 10kts is about the max handling speed for the 462 if say it was blowing 35kts on the beam, or you were broad reaching with pleanty of sail power....sea state is the ultimate deciding factor but the boat can take it.

The big thing is, if you want to pay the money for the rig??...there are no short cuts...I have all self-tailing winches..pleanty of rope Jambers..serious mast sections, spreaders etc. that will take any amount of stress, as it is designed by the same mast makers we have used for maybe 12 of our around the world boats. One of the 50 ft boats we built did 7 solo circumnavigations, all through the southern ocean with no problems..all with the same Japanese skipper, the last time was non- stop and he was 70 ! SO our standing and running rig with furling boom ,Flopper stoppers all the winches, furlers, furling boom, solid vang. etc was about AUD$80,000..but worth every cent,as long as you know how to use it.

If you have never sailed before, it would all be too much, but if you are a sailor thinking MOTOR SAILOR, put a proper rig on a Duck and you have a winner...the hull can sail.I WILL try to get some pic's up.

Anyway we beat the typhoon by about 5 hours( it raced toward us in the end arriving 9 hours early) and the worst was only about 55kts in the gusts...in a very Muddy anchorage where our HUGE..second biggest Fortress anchor usually stored in the aft cabin, did the job on Rope with the 110lb CQR on chain as a back up...the typhoon lost power but passed about 20 miles from us.

The main drama from the trip..algee in the opps tank picked up in China( changed 6 raycors along the way) and a silly diesel leak onto an alternator which sprayed all over the engine room ..FUN...Other little things...Fuel leaking from the tank guage senders..need more lagging on the dry part of the exhaust...engine room temps up to 46 celcius at times...bit of engine room hot air came into the pilot house following a bige pump line, and a bit of cycling of bilge water( in , out,in,out etc) in the forward and aft compartments....not bad for a new boat...I'm Happy.

The other big thing about ICE is how livable and fun it is to be onboard..the Flybridge is simply awsome., Pilot house , cockpit layout etc great...and we have a traditional yacht fitout instead of the free floating chairs in the saloon which gives us a huge amount of storage space, a full dinette with a BIG table for down stairs dining...our hand-holds and stairs going below are very functional in a sea way...everything about it is just good.

So for now I am in Tasmania working on our Bounty Boat ( 25ft timber whale boat) for the Mutiny on the Bounty 4000 mile open boat voyage/adventure April next year and headed Back to ICE in a few weeks.

Our Passage from HK to Subic was never a drama, we were always in control, we had Ocean Passages of the world and all Jimmy's books onboard...I had HK weather from Margie and weather routing from my Round world sailing mate "Quilter"...and we did 9 to 9.5kts for nearly 20 hrs...nice boat ..thanks George/Bill & Stella and everyone at Seahorse .

Dave Nagle has posted a great description of the journey on his blog site:
http://www.sailblogs.com/member/sempergumbi/

Message from Bill:

As of now all three Ducks caught in the typhoon are safe. Don McIntyre 4626, with Dave Nagle, and BenBen 3822 "ducked" into a bay north of Subic Bay and are at the club now. Ruth and Randal 4625 are anchored in a very sheltered bay near "Busuanga Province / Calauit Island / Illultuk town".

I'm sure we will hear some great stories later on their blogs. I know BenBen www.blogatrip.com had to hove to for some time and Don hi powered motorsailed (9 1/2 knots for 20 hours!) with all sails on his ketch flying to cross over the top of the typhoon. Don was anchored in a good bay just before the typhoon hit. Randal is having fun testing his new anchor he had made while in Subic.