How To Survive The “Death Zone”!!!

In a recent video we talked about the AC72s of the 34th America’s Cup, and how Oracle Team USA capsized their AC72 during a practice session in San Francisco Bay after passing through the so-called “death zone”.
Today we are going to explain more about the nature of the “Death Zone”, and also show you a cockpit view of us sailing through the “Death Zone” and explain how we make it out the other side.
Modern sailing boats can sail in most directions relative to the wind, except straight upwind, with the fastest point of sail being a beam reach, where the wind is perpendicular to the direction of travel. The “Death Zone” for very fast boats generally lies just below a beam reach, at around 95-105 degrees off the wind.
When sailing to windward on a windward/leeward course, the helmsperson can power up the boat by steering down towards a beam reach, and depower by steering up towards head-to wind.
Similarly, when sailing downwind, the helmsperson can power up the boat by steering up towards a beam reach, and depower by heading downwind. But inside the “Death Zone” the helmsperson can’t easily steer up or down to depower the boat, because they’re right between the two.
So the boat can accelerate quickly and lose control if the crew don’t take appropriate action.
People normally think of the “Death Zone” at the windward mark during a bear away, when the boat is turning from upwind to downwind mode, but it can also be an issue when turning from downwind to upwind as we’ll see in this video of us out racing a few weeks ago on our 27 foot, 8.2 metre F-82R trimaran.
Many fast multihulls these days have anti-capsize devices which automatically ease the sails when they sense that things aren’t going as they should.
These devices, and always keeping the alert and ready to ease the sails can hopefully keep us all from winding up like Oracle Team USA.
To be fair to them, they were sailing in more than twice as much wind as we were, and on a much more powerful boat, so it could also be that there was nothing that could be done in that situation, other than to not be there in the first place.
This video includes content for educational purposes under fair use:
Oracle Team USA Images: Guilain Grenier
Disclaimer:
This content is offered solely for your education and entertainment.
There are no warranties, expressed or implicit, about any content or its fitness for a particular purpose.
There are risks of injury, death, drunkenness, and financial hardship involved in sailing.
The skipper is always responsible for the safety of their vessel and crew.
Sailing Tips is not responsible or liable in any way for anything that happens on or anywhere near your boat or any boat that we are not in command of.
#sailing #foiling #howtosail #learntosail #sailingtips