| Silky
Story Yesterday we ran an Ask Someone feature that queried about the 41' Silk II. Designer Alan Andrews addressed it from a design perspective, but here's a great story about what happened from on board. Enjoy.  Silk
II - what really happened. There was nothing inherently
wrong with the Murray 41 design - but back in 1996 the
way to optimise to the recent CHS rating was to add displacement
via internal ballast and add a tad of bow down trim by
moving it forward. There were clues to future events
on the day before the notorious picture was taken - we
had beaten the other 5 Murray 41's sailing in Cowes Week
class 1 (41 ft was a big boat 10 years ago) to the windward
mark of that race but had been comprehensively steam
rolled down hill by a sistership (skipper Matt Humphries
currently Brunel skipper in VOR) and our boat felt nosey
and very reluctant to get up and surf in pleasantly wavey
20 tws conditions. We figured that we had more internal lead than them but that the rating reduction was a marginal net gain to us so long as there was not too much surfing action. The day dawned - "Big Tuesday" Cowes Week 1996. It was fresh at the start, and it increased quickly. Later starting classes were canceled leaving a large spectator fleet ashore to observe the developing carnage. We banged our way uphill for about 40 mins, failed to fully secure the fore hatch and by the time we had reached the windward part of the course off Lymington, we were carrying far more water in the hull than we knew or than was good for us. Off we go downhill, 25-30 tws, wind against ripping tide, heavy narrow hull , extra lead and extra water ballast sloshing around. This was heading for a photo opportunity. Masthead .75 symmetric blew its head patch out, so we changed to the masthead .9 asymmetric. Our bravado was fueled by the facts that this was a very well prepared boat, 90% crewed by professionals including 3 Whitbread RTW crew. And we knew how keen the (absent) owner was to have his yacht's name engraved onto the major Cowes Week trophies. It was an exciting ride but we kept the hull under the rig all the way to the Brambles bank due north of Cowes and the assembled spectators. The two gybes had gone smoothly but as we approached the bank the extra tide rip made a steep short sea even steeper and shorter and encouraged the boat to dig its bow in. The Code 4 jib on the deck was making a bid for freedom so just as we encountered the worst tide, the bowman had to go forward to retrieve it, at the same time a gnarly gust came through. Tactician and gust monitor Gordon McGuire failed in his attempt to sound calm as he correctly reported "this one's got teeth on it..." It showed 43 tws on our B&G gear. The boat accelerated only a little to around 17 knots, but used most of the energy of the gust to plant its nose into the next wave and rather than popping its bow up , it kept going down. And down. The bowman (on the bow in the picture) was now under significant water, the rudder was waving in the air, crew were falling from the pushpit like a scene from Titanic, and the on hand photographer couldn't believe his luck. She hung in the air for what felt like minutes but proven by video to be about 3 seconds and then fell sideways into a conventional broach. One person over board, soon rescued, all leeward stanchions bent 45 degrees by the force of the broach, pushpit bent by the weight of many crew hanging almost vertically off it, one melted spinnaker sheet and plenty of shocked expressions on the faces of the crew and the spectators. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that the damage was so limited. We fixed the boat overnight and won the next day's Britannia Cup as well as class 1 overall for the week. The man overboard spent the night in hospital (shock, cold) and declined any further racing that week. The 10th anniversary of that day approaches. Amongst other things I have learnt to check that the fore hatch shuts securely. Mark Heeley 05/24/06 |