[Rhodes22-list] Outer Banks Sea Trials

[Richard Smith]

< I've got the 9.9hp
> Yamaha.  Are you saying that it will not provide enough power to overcome
> wind and waves?  I would think that it must be pretty intense conditions
> for the 9.9hp to be overpowered.>

Your going to have issues with cavitation not power.  Just about any
sailboat with a transom hung outboard will be prone to it.  The heavy motor
at the aft end exaggerates the boats normal hobby horse motion.  The prop
simply loses it's "grip" on the water and the boat stops dead.

This situation becomes dangerous when the wave period becomes short and the
waves are very steep and possibly breaking a bit.  At worst you sit there
with the engine racing going nowhere.  The only way to deal with this
situation is to "tack" so that the seas are on your bow quarter.  Using this
tactic it possible to slowly work to windward.

Of course this procedure leads to wet and discomfort but it's better then
piling up on the beach or being driven back to open water to wait it out.

I suspect you read the excerpt from the Nimble site.  The owner is
describing  exactly this kind of chop. In general it's derived from a local
seabreeze blowing against a tidal/current flow.

On Monday here in New York harbour the Ambrose Jet was blowing so strongly
against the ebb that a brutal 2 foot chop developed.  It was quite out of
the question for a boat like a Rhodes to have a chance of working directly
to windward against it!

Richard Smith