Performance in following seas

[Ernie]

I was out yesterday on Puget Sound, and lake Union. Great day, but I puzzled over my R23’s performance on the way home in front of some pretty fat following seas. It was not a bad chop, probably 3’ maybe some bigger. My boat just felt different, sort of sluggish. No motor sputter or choking, pretty smooth sound, just sluggish feeling. Rpms seemed to rise slower with the throttle fwd than usual. I have added a 9.9 beside the 200 and I did have a 35 pound inflatable boat in the cockpit middle locker. The motor was pretty deep even when trimmed up, but water was draining from the well, and no water in the motor mount back at the dock. I got 35 gallons of gas at Lake Union gas dock, and sort of wondered if it was bad.
A little puzzle. I’ll be back out soon on smoothe water to compare the typical running state.
Any ideas or jsimilar experience?

 

[baz]

With a following sea condition it could be that the prop had to deal with extra flow to what it's used to without a following sea. A following sea condition does make the boat handle very differently and will cause it to sway quite violently at times as the stern get pushed one way or the other.

Are you referring to the engine sounds or the boat handling aspects ?

If boating in calm seas next time and all seems to be AOK I wouldn't worry too much as following seas are awkward and troublesome dealing with.

 

[dclagett]

Ernie,

What you experienced in the following seas is normal. The apparent speed seems slow because you are traveling with the waves rather than against them. The sluggishness is due to climbing the back of a wave, making the boat go uphill, in addition to making the boat go forward.

Following seas can be dangerous. It is best to trim your bow up so that as you go over one wave and into the next your bow does not dig into the oncoming wave. If the bow does dig in this may cause a broach where the boat is steered sideways by the wave which can potentially roll the boat. If you can't trim the boats bow high enough not to dig in then the only option is slow the boat down and ride on the back side of a wave.

There is a lot of information and videos on piloting in following seas on the web or in publications like Chapman's Piloting & Seamanship.

Happy and safe boating! 🙂

 

[jongleur]

The water in waves is going forward and backward
as well as up and down. This results in the go/stop
feeling the boat gives you. Somewhat explained
here: http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~jdirnber/oc ... Waves.html

Sometimes that feeling can be really frustrating.