Capsize Testing Penobscot 14

Article By Shorty


An absolute MUST for every small boat is to test swamping it, and see if you can self recover.

Al Meyer built his Penobscot 14 to the designer's plans, and while it is wood and does have some floatation compartments built in, she just didn't look like she had enough.

First we dipped her gunnel down to let the water in.

Al tried reboarding over the side ...

... and you can clearly see what the problem is.

We tried having Al move all over the boat to see if there was a position that would dump out the water, and leave the gunnels up, but with the stock floatation it just didn't work.

Back out of the boat, and Al was bailing. That water is heavy, and he is kinda cheating because he is standing on the bottom while he bails. In deep water, you would have to swim next to the boat as you bail.

After we wore him out bailing, he came over the stern and was able to get back in without letting in a flood of water.


*** I dont' have pictures of this, but next we borrowed some floatation and stuffed it under the thwarts. We rolled her to the side again, and when upright, she had much less water and Al was able to board without doing any bailing. He's going to add more floatation, and then will be able to sail her confidently in deep water.


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