Woah--you are really lucky. You should never be unballasted in the ocean IMHO. Going without ballast is for flat lakes and bays with less than 800 lbs. of weight topside. Being ballasted only drops the top speed by 2..3knots, certainly worth the vastly better safety margin. I'm not sure how fast these conditions came up, but you can't effectively plane through waves higher than three feet in a Mac.boatbitch wrote:First trip to the San Juans in Washinton state provided a real education about the handling of this boat. We left Port Ludlow later than I had wanted to. The out going tide was changing to an incomming tide. Also the winds of the Juan De Fu c a in the after noon soon were to pick up. Realizing that it would be rather late before we got to Friday Harbor I decided to put the peddle to the metal and get there. I dropped the ballast, up the dagger and rudders and ran hard and fast (50hp). At the west end of Whidbey we hit the current running out of cattle pass, a good rip tide est to be running 8 knots. The winds had picked up to arround 15 knots. The rip waves were arround 10+ feet. Once it started getting that ruff my wife weged herself in the dogger. I was powering through it just fine until the waves got even sharper. The bow slid off a wave and the whole boat slid off on to her side. The helm did not respond to anything I did. Our mast touched the next wave and the prop of the motor came out of the water. We were actually on our side. Had I not had a good grip on the wheel I would have gone over the side. But the good vessel righted itself and I started thinking about why all of that happened. Wife was pretty freaked at this point. I put the ballast back in, dropped the dagger and rudders. She stopped feeling like a cork and returned to being a sailing vessel. Using the motor I was able to push through a flood tide and make it to the calmer waters of Friday Harbor. A regular 6 knot sailing vessel could have not done what we did. Just remember to add ballast and the dagger and rudders and she handles well. Also pay attention to weather forcast, esp winds and tides. Its more fun just to put her on the trailer and go to better places if you dont like where you are.
You did exactly the right thing: Ballast the boat, slow down below 7 knots, drop all boards, and set a course as perpendicular to the waves as you can.
