Beach cat recovery
Follow these simple steps to get your cat back on its feet

For seat-of-your-pants speed and fun few things beat sailing a small beach catamaran. But with those thrills come the occasional spills, as all catamarans are liable to capsize. Fortunately, they’re not too difficult to right and get back up and sailing.

When a cat capsizes it will either go over 90 degrees and lie on its side, or it will turn turtle, going all the way around 180 degrees. Recovering from a 180-degree capsize is more difficult, but most modern cats will have positive buoyancy in their masts, so they’ll be much more likely to lie on their sides rather than inverting.

The most important thing to remember when sailing a beach cat is that if you do go over you want to stay with the boat. An overturned cat presents a lot of surface area for the wind to push it along, away from the crew, and it may be difficult swimming to the boat. If possible, grab and hang onto the mainsheet or jib sheet. Also, don’t fall into the sail, as you may break the battens or lose contact with the boat.

Once the boat has gone over, these steps, adapted from The Catamaran Book by Brian Phipps, will get you back on your feet.

Step 1
Lower yourself into the water, preferably between the foot of the mainsail and the trampoline. Don’t try to pull yourself up out of the water as you may pull the boat completely over on top of you. While keeping a hand on the boat, make your way forward toward the bow. Get up on the lower hull just forward of the mast beam.

Step 2
You now want to get the mast pointing into the wind where it will make righting the boat easier. This will also allow the main to act as a sea anchor. To do this, gently submerge the bow of the lower hull in the water until the boat swings around and the mast is into the wind. Now you can prepare the boat for righting by releasing the mainsheet, jib sheet and traveler. It is important to uncleat all the lines, otherwise the boat may sail away from you once it has been righted.

Step 3
Next, position yourself and your crew on the hull by the mast beam and bring the righting line or end of the mainsheet halyard over the top hull. Lean back on the line until you are almost horizontal to the water. Your crewmate may need to help you to get the momentum going. The amount of weight needed to get the boat to turn over will depend on the type and size catamaran you’re sailing, as well as the strength of the wind. The stronger the wind, the easier it is to right the boat.

Step 4
Once the mast breaks the water the wind will help push the boat back upright. Be careful at this point, as the momentum created in righting the boat can easily push it too far over and capsize it on the other side. To prevent this, after the boat starts to come up either you or your crew should move to where the lower hull and mast beam meet and hold onto the underside of the beam, using body weight to stop the boat from flipping over the other way.

Step 5
Once the boat is back on its feet you and your crew will be under the boat between the hulls, holding onto the mast beam. This is a good position to be in as it will help you keep the boat from tipping over the other way and it allows you to safely stay in contact with the boat, which may want to sail off. From here you may be able to simply pull yourself up over the beam and onto the trampoline. However, if you’re tired and feeling too weak to pull yourself up over the beam, make your way under trampoline to the stern of the boat, where the buoyancy is lower and it is easier to climb back aboard. Holding onto the stern beam, push the rudders over to point the boat into the wind. Then pull yourself up between the rear beam and the tiller connecting bar.

Step 6
The only thing to do now is to clean up any loose lines, get your bearings, re-rig the mainsheet, traveler and jib sheet and sail away.

As mentioned earlier, with catamarans having buoyant masts you shouldn’t have to worry about completely inverting the boat 180 degrees. But should you find yourself in such a situation you still should be able to right the boat without outside assistance.

The key is to get the bows up out of the water to where the boat will swing over on its side. To do this, put your weight on the stern of the downwind hull with the righting line coming from the windward hull and all sheets uncleated. Lean back to raise the windward hull at the bow until the mast becomes unstuck and wants to float to the surface. As the mast comes up, move your weight forward to stop the bow from rising. Once the boat is on its side you just follow the same steps for righting from a 90-degree capsize.

Adapted with permission from the publisher, John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., from The Catamaran Book, 3rd ed. by Brian Phipps, ISBN 1-898660-44-1, 1998.

DIY Anchor Rode Markers
Marking your anchor rode at specific spots will allow you to make sure you let out the proper length of rode to get the required scope. You can buy ready-made markers, but I prefer using simple plastic cable ties, sometimes called zip ties.

To prepare your anchor rode take your entire length of rode out of the anchor locker and fake it out on the dock. You do this at the dock for several reasons. You need to make sure it is in good condition, find out how much you have and make sure the bitter end is attached to the boat. You will save wear and tear on your gelcoat if you do this while still at the dock. Also, here you have a more stable platform for marking the rode. If you have all chain rode and use a windlass, you may want to mark it with fluorescent spray paint, as this will last longer than cable ties, which tend to get sheared off by the windlass sprockets.

If you are using cable ties, pick three colors that you have plenty of. Then make a sign on a large sheet of paper telling what each color signifies and have it laminated. Your sign might look like this:

Color = Feet
Yellow = 10’
Blue = 50’
Red = 100’

Tape the sign to the inside cover of your anchor locker. Now mark all the lengths that you will need. Put two yellow ties at 20 feet, a blue and two yellows at 70 feet, put a red and a blue at 150 feet and two reds at 200 feet. The beauty of this system is that each mark reads independently of the others. Even if some of the marks are missing, you can still read each one. Resist the temptation to just put a mark every 25 or 50 feet. If you do it that way, once you’ve lost one mark, you’ve lost your whole system.

If you have three-strand laid line, grab the rode with two hands and twist it so that you create a space between strands to poke the cable tie through, so that the tie is wrapped around two of the strands. Then tighten the tie so it is as tight as possible, and cut off the excess. If you have woven anchor rode, circle the line with the tie and tighten it as much as possible so it won’t slide. If you are chartering a boat with all chain and don’t want to permanently alter the chain by spray painting marks on it, you can wrap the cable tie around a link of chain and tighten it. You may have to periodically replace the ties that are sheared off by the windlass.

Color cable ties are much better than the plastic anchor rode markers that you can buy at the marine store. The reason is this: the official anchor rode markers are all the same color and usually printed only on one side. To read the marker you need to grab the marker and turn it over to read the number. Also, the thin plastic is not as sturdy as color cable ties.

My friends and I set up this system on several charter boats in the Caribbean and Great Lakes, and came back the following year to find several boats with the original signs affixed to the anchor lockers and the system still in use. --Joan Gilmore