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Storm Tactics Handbook: Modern Methods of Heaving-to for Survival in Extreme Conditions
A new, completely revised and expanded version of this book is now available. Storm Tactics Handbook 3rd edition was released in July. It contains all of the information in this edition plus nine additional chapters Notes from a voyage around Cape Horn, Preventing Rudder damage, Storm Staysails, An interview with the Late Sir Peter Blake on storm tactics. The new edition also has updates on important items such as choosing a para-anchor, check lists for getting fin keeled boats to lay hove to, when to heave to without a para-anchor and when to deploy one. Several new chapters telling the stories of people who have weathered severe storms using these tactics are also included. You will find the 3rd edition much more user friendly and up to date. Reviewers are recommending that people who used the second edition will find sufficent addirional information to buy the more recent 3rd edition. To go directly to this edition click on other editions on the opening page of this one.
170 pages, Perfect Paperback
First published July 18, 2013
183 people are currently reading
253 people want to read
About the author
Lin Pardey
34 books46 followersLin Pardey (aka Mary Lin Pardey) is famous internationally for her expertise and experience in small boat sailing. Together with her husband Larry Pardey she has been sailing and writing for many years.
Lin's (& Larry's) sailing records speak for themselves:
Smallest boat to have circumnavigated contrary to the prevailing winds around all the great southern capes
Only couple to have circumnavigated both east-about and west about on boats they built them selves, using traditional means of navigation and having no engine.
Their awards tell about their dedication to the world and spirit of ocean cruising:
Ocean Cruising Club Award - for contributions to Seamanship for small boat sailing. Presented to Lin Pardey 1996.
Geoff Pac Memorial Award- to both Lin and Larry for fostering and encouraging ocean cruising in small yachts
Cruising World Hall of Fame-2000
Ocean Cruising Club Merit Award -To Lin and Larry for inspiring voyages including a west-about rounding of Cape Horn
Seven Seas Cruising Club Service Award - To Lin and Larry for their lifetime voyaging achievements 2004
Cruising Club of America Far Horizons Award – To Lin and Larry for life time achievements and contributions to seamanship 2009
Sail Magazines Top 40 Sailors who made a Difference – 2010 – As America’s first couple fo cruising, Lin and Larry have inspired countless sailors.
Lin and Larry currently make their home port in New Zealand.
Lin's (& Larry's) sailing records speak for themselves:
Smallest boat to have circumnavigated contrary to the prevailing winds around all the great southern capes
Only couple to have circumnavigated both east-about and west about on boats they built them selves, using traditional means of navigation and having no engine.
Their awards tell about their dedication to the world and spirit of ocean cruising:
Ocean Cruising Club Award - for contributions to Seamanship for small boat sailing. Presented to Lin Pardey 1996.
Geoff Pac Memorial Award- to both Lin and Larry for fostering and encouraging ocean cruising in small yachts
Cruising World Hall of Fame-2000
Ocean Cruising Club Merit Award -To Lin and Larry for inspiring voyages including a west-about rounding of Cape Horn
Seven Seas Cruising Club Service Award - To Lin and Larry for their lifetime voyaging achievements 2004
Cruising Club of America Far Horizons Award – To Lin and Larry for life time achievements and contributions to seamanship 2009
Sail Magazines Top 40 Sailors who made a Difference – 2010 – As America’s first couple fo cruising, Lin and Larry have inspired countless sailors.
Lin and Larry currently make their home port in New Zealand.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 17, 2020
Larry Pardey, a highly-respected figure in the sailing world, died three weeks ago, and what a loss to the sailing community that is. He and his wife, Lin, have been sailing and writing books about sailing and boat-building since the late 1960's, and I've always liked their writing because of Lin's clear and honest approach to explaining what they did that worked, and what didn't. Together, they built two wooden boats, circumnavigated in each, and as a consequence of spending so much time at sea, they learned a thing or two. What follows is probably of interest only to sailors or those who like reading about the details of sailing, so you are forewarned.
Lin and Larry have convinced me, by their research and through stories of theirs and others' first-hand experiences, that the best approach to riding out a storm is to heave-to. While I have practiced heaving-to, I've never executed that maneuver in a storm, though I can think of at least one time when, in retrospect, I probably should have done so. Lin and Larry meant, by this book, to counter a modern, racer-inspired, tendency to favor running before a storm. Racers, by their nature, hate losing time, and heaving-to is about nothing if not making the boat stationary (a relative term in high winds and waves). Lin and Larry did a counter-intuitive thing in researching this book; they threw out the accounts of yachtsmen from the 1960's and later, and went back to the accounts of the sailing captains of the great age of sail from the late 1800's and early Twentieth Century. Those captains were serious men who were first and foremost dedicated to completing their voyages with cargo intact and all hands safe, and they did not hazard their ships through risky storm tactics. Modern racers like Bernard Moitessier, were interested in other things, including winning races. Moitessier, though an excellent sailor, was a single-hander and was only responsible for himself and his beloved boat, Joshua. He and his fellow racers advocated running, and dragging lines or chains rather than heaving to, and he did it successfully several times in the godawful conditions of the Southern Ocean. But he was also one of the most skillful sailors who ever lived, so one might say he had an unfair advantage when it came to hand-steering the boat for hours while careening among massive waves. The Pardeys already had a sneaking suspicion that most sailors, even very experienced sailors, could not reliably imitate the elite racers' tactics. In reading the accounts of the old sailing captains, they confirmed that they universally recommended heaving-to to ride out a storm as the best tactic. Lin and Larry began to wonder if the cult of the heroic mariner running in the Southern Ocean had caused modern sailors to forget good seamanship.
The Pardeys studied many famous disasters at sea like the 1979 Fastnet Race, where winds rose to at least Force 10, and out of 303 boats that started, 75 were capsized, 24 were abandoned, and five sank. Nineteen people died, and the UK and Ireland mounted the largest peace-time rescue operation in history to save those on disabled vessels. In this and other disasters, the Pardeys found that among those yachts that ran, with or without drogues or lines/chains trailing, many came to grief by broaching or pitch-poling, while none of those who were hove-to capsized. Worse, the captains who ran often reported that everything seemed fine, right up until it wasn't. The first notice many of them had of impending disaster was the sound or sight of a massive wave breaking astern or on their beam.
The Pardeys (and many other sailors) report cases of lying hove-to in winds even above 80 knots, while calmly (well, maybe not calmly) cooking eggs below in the galley. When the boat is balanced for the sideways slipping to lee that is the secret of heaving-to, it creates a slick in its wake to windward that miraculously (or, actually via physical laws of fluid dynamics) defeats waves that would otherwise break over the boat. As Lin Pardey says, it really has to be seen to be believed. But the most convincing part of the book is the amassed data that shows reliably safe outcomes from properly heaving-to.
The book is a wonderful compendium of checklists and recommendations, and it is only slightly dated. It is well worth reading if you sail and intend to be well out to sea where, when storms happen, you have to deal with them with what you have on board, and the skills you have already learned.
Lin and Larry have convinced me, by their research and through stories of theirs and others' first-hand experiences, that the best approach to riding out a storm is to heave-to. While I have practiced heaving-to, I've never executed that maneuver in a storm, though I can think of at least one time when, in retrospect, I probably should have done so. Lin and Larry meant, by this book, to counter a modern, racer-inspired, tendency to favor running before a storm. Racers, by their nature, hate losing time, and heaving-to is about nothing if not making the boat stationary (a relative term in high winds and waves). Lin and Larry did a counter-intuitive thing in researching this book; they threw out the accounts of yachtsmen from the 1960's and later, and went back to the accounts of the sailing captains of the great age of sail from the late 1800's and early Twentieth Century. Those captains were serious men who were first and foremost dedicated to completing their voyages with cargo intact and all hands safe, and they did not hazard their ships through risky storm tactics. Modern racers like Bernard Moitessier, were interested in other things, including winning races. Moitessier, though an excellent sailor, was a single-hander and was only responsible for himself and his beloved boat, Joshua. He and his fellow racers advocated running, and dragging lines or chains rather than heaving to, and he did it successfully several times in the godawful conditions of the Southern Ocean. But he was also one of the most skillful sailors who ever lived, so one might say he had an unfair advantage when it came to hand-steering the boat for hours while careening among massive waves. The Pardeys already had a sneaking suspicion that most sailors, even very experienced sailors, could not reliably imitate the elite racers' tactics. In reading the accounts of the old sailing captains, they confirmed that they universally recommended heaving-to to ride out a storm as the best tactic. Lin and Larry began to wonder if the cult of the heroic mariner running in the Southern Ocean had caused modern sailors to forget good seamanship.
The Pardeys studied many famous disasters at sea like the 1979 Fastnet Race, where winds rose to at least Force 10, and out of 303 boats that started, 75 were capsized, 24 were abandoned, and five sank. Nineteen people died, and the UK and Ireland mounted the largest peace-time rescue operation in history to save those on disabled vessels. In this and other disasters, the Pardeys found that among those yachts that ran, with or without drogues or lines/chains trailing, many came to grief by broaching or pitch-poling, while none of those who were hove-to capsized. Worse, the captains who ran often reported that everything seemed fine, right up until it wasn't. The first notice many of them had of impending disaster was the sound or sight of a massive wave breaking astern or on their beam.
The Pardeys (and many other sailors) report cases of lying hove-to in winds even above 80 knots, while calmly (well, maybe not calmly) cooking eggs below in the galley. When the boat is balanced for the sideways slipping to lee that is the secret of heaving-to, it creates a slick in its wake to windward that miraculously (or, actually via physical laws of fluid dynamics) defeats waves that would otherwise break over the boat. As Lin Pardey says, it really has to be seen to be believed. But the most convincing part of the book is the amassed data that shows reliably safe outcomes from properly heaving-to.
The book is a wonderful compendium of checklists and recommendations, and it is only slightly dated. It is well worth reading if you sail and intend to be well out to sea where, when storms happen, you have to deal with them with what you have on board, and the skills you have already learned.
October 13, 2012
The Pardeys are legends in the sailing community because they have been everywhere, done everything and have sound advice for sailors. We read this book before we sailed through the "spin cycle" between New Zealand and Fiji - and thankfully didn't need to implement any of their tactics. I think that is because we were ready, with our sea anchor at arm's length and having practised heaving-to before we left. Thank you Lin and Larry!
January 11, 2010
An excellent book for anyone who thinks they might find themselves on a sailboat in a storm. If so, read this book to learn how to heave-to in a storm. If not, never mind.
August 23, 2022
The definitive modern book on major storm survival in a sailboat.
This is an entire book on a single maneuver: heaving-to. About 30% of the content is how to prepare your boat and equipment (and crew) for this before setting out, and the rest covers how and why to heave to instead of running with a drogue or trailing warps.
The authors give anecdotal evidence from multiple sailors in seas over 50 feet and wind over 100 kts.
Many sailors hope to never see more than 40 kts. This book helps you to prepare for the third reef and beyond if you find yourself in those conditions, especially without sufficient sea room to run.
If you are not an offshore sailor, this book will make no sense and hold zero interest. If you are an offshore sailor, you'll likely read it multiple times.
This is an entire book on a single maneuver: heaving-to. About 30% of the content is how to prepare your boat and equipment (and crew) for this before setting out, and the rest covers how and why to heave to instead of running with a drogue or trailing warps.
The authors give anecdotal evidence from multiple sailors in seas over 50 feet and wind over 100 kts.
Many sailors hope to never see more than 40 kts. This book helps you to prepare for the third reef and beyond if you find yourself in those conditions, especially without sufficient sea room to run.
If you are not an offshore sailor, this book will make no sense and hold zero interest. If you are an offshore sailor, you'll likely read it multiple times.
June 21, 2019
Must Have
This book should be on every sailboat owners book shelf. Even if you are not planning extensive offshore voyages, the knowledge and experience conveyed in this book are priceless.
This book should be on every sailboat owners book shelf. Even if you are not planning extensive offshore voyages, the knowledge and experience conveyed in this book are priceless.
October 10, 2021
It's not luck but knowledge that get you across that big pond
Having read numerous books about sailors and small craft crossing oceans and dealing with huge waves, Strong currents and ever changing winds, this book clearly illustrate how they are able to do that .
Having read numerous books about sailors and small craft crossing oceans and dealing with huge waves, Strong currents and ever changing winds, this book clearly illustrate how they are able to do that .
October 28, 2022
Should probably address jordan series drogues more.
August 2, 2023
A must read of every sailor
Read
January 6, 2014Exceptional
If you have ever so much as motored around a lake, you will quickly realize how authentic and important the information in this book is. Don't just read it, take it to heart. It could easily save your vessel and your life.
If you have ever so much as motored around a lake, you will quickly realize how authentic and important the information in this book is. Don't just read it, take it to heart. It could easily save your vessel and your life.
November 21, 2008
One has to know how to survive storms, academic or otherwise
July 10, 2012
Practical and usable information.
July 11, 2013
The classic. A must read. (For sailors, that is.)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews