Hey, welcome to 59 degrees north, a podcast about sailing with your host, Andy Shell.

Enjoy the show.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to 59 degrees north.

This is part two of the ocean sailing forum.

Technically, I'm calling it episode 127, because it is a full length.

But keep the intro short.

So enjoy the second part of the ocean sailing forum.

Talking a bit now going from equipment to the planning as far as passage planning and routing and weather.

Rick, you probably have done more heavy weather sailing than any of us up here.

Do you have one key to handling heavy weather?

Uh, yeah, I think the key to handling heavy weather is to is to have your boat prepared for

it before you leave the dock and if you're going to use a storm jib or if you're

going to use a storm try-so understand how to use it before you leave the dock if

you're going to use a drogue as we probably would if we got in 50 knots of wind

with a catamaran we might put a drogue out you better know how to understand how to use that and have used it in light air so that you know how to get it overboard without taking somebody overboard with it I think that's really being prepared before you leave I think is the key thing and I

guess the second thing is particularly for the person who is responsible for

running the boat and I didn't say the guys who are responsible for running the

boat because we know lots of people lots of couples who sail where it's really

the woman who's running the boat so whoever is making those decisions to have a plan and to go over a plan with everybody,

this is what we're going to do if the wind gets to here, this is what we're going to do if

the wind gets to there, this is what we're going to do if it becomes a very severe storm,

and then to calmly work through those things.

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