HEAVY WEATHER TECHNIQUES
A veteran of four round-theworld campaigns, numerous Transats and the breaker of 27 different sailing records, Brian Thompson is among the world’s most experienced yachtsmen. And since his first OSTAR in his own 35ft trimaran in 1992, many of his ocean miles have been hard won, sailing multihulls like Stars and Stripes, Playstation and Phaedo3 in some of the world’s least hospitable oceans.
We asked him and South African naval architect Alex Simonis for their top tips on handling catamarans or trimarans when the going gets rough. Simonis has designed the Leopard range of cruising cats for many years, and revels in testing each new model in the extreme conditions for which his native coast is infamous.
DON’T GET CAUGHT OUT
Whenever you ask a really experienced sailor about dealing with storms at sea, they all shrug and say: don’t find yourself in that position in the first place. And with modern weather forecasting and routing services, there is no longer any excuse for being caught unawares in the thick of a storm, agrees Thompson.
“I skippered a MOD70 from France to Newport, Rhode Island, in August – a hostile route upwind during hurricane season, which seems like a very bad idea. But the boat is fast and with the routing software we took an odd route, south to the Azores, then up to Newfoundland and over the top of the lows into Newport. We had a lovely trip with lots of
