I thought it would be an interesting debate,
First about the superiority of the serie drogue as a sea anchor over the more commonly used parachute.
Second about setting the sea anchor from the stern.

I thought I had a good case for setting from the bow: here are my arguments and the inventor,
Donald Jordan's response.
I would like to hear from fellow sailors and from Malcom Tennant.
Jean Pierre

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Donald Jordan Donaldjordan@att.net
To: jean-pierre dufour jpjdufour@yahoo.com
Sent: Saturday, April 5, 2008 4:44:26 PM
Subject: Re: drogue from the bow

DIV {
MARGIN:0px;}
Hello
I know you will not like this answer, but I
definitely do not recommend the bow. The broad reason is that all boats must be
designed to be stable moving forward and are thus unstable moving
backward.
The drogue  will not foul the propellers. Many
multihulls with a wide bridle have tried sea anchors from the bow with
absolutely no success and in a serious storm with disaster.  All multihulls
with the drogue from the stern have ridden out the storms in relative
comfort.  Sorry, Don
----- Original Message -----
From:  jean-pierre
dufour
To: donaldjordan@att.net
Cc: serie drogue
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 5:26  PM
Subject: drogue from the bow

Hi Don.

I am very impressed with your invention the serie drogue to  use as a sea anchor.
I have read your literature and understand all the  reasons why you recommend setting the  drogue at the stern. But I think I  have good argument for  a  bow-setting in my case, as I  explained  Dave.
Here attached a side view and the hull  of    my boat designed by Malcom Tennant.
1- This boat has no sailing rig and has  a lot more windage aft than forward.
2- The aft cockpit has an aft-facing  curve and will take wind coming from aft like a sail. So will the  flybridge.
3- The aft has no reserve buoyancy and will take poorly coming  seas.
4- The aft swim platform is unprotected, and I will never get down  there in heavy seas to make any adjustment or retrieve the drogue.
4-There  will be no easy way to recover the drogue aft. On the contrary, I have a  strong windlass and a large bow roller at the bow. (we are an old sailing  couple, and on a 35000Kg boat, the drogue will be heavy)
5- In addition, at  the stern, during recovery from the stern platform, the drogue would hang down  between the 2 props which would render the engines unusable, and the drogue  could get caught in the prop.
6-So, I do believe in my case, a serie drogue  from the stern can cause some serious problems, and setting from bow with a  large bridle is a better way to go, but I would like your opinion.
I would  add that with very long and narrow hull and a wide bridle set at the most  forward, the boat will stay very still, contrary to most sailing catamarans  who have hulls fat at the center in order to allow to turn around the center  of gravity.

Cheers.

Jean  Pierre.

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JP,

In a nutshell your instincts, re drogue vs sea anchor,
coelesque with mine and my brief experience laying to
sea anchor.

Do it from the bow, from the direction of least
resistance.  Your boat and mine is designed to pierce
seas coming from the front, not the back.

All bridling reinforcement on my boats is on the bows.
Adjustment from there is a given as well.  Anchor
bridling or sea-anchor bridling is from the same
strong points.  Same fairleads and attachments.

It is a natural to point the bows into rough seas
either lying to ground tackle or sea anchor.

Backward drift with a properly sized sea anchor is
minimal...negligent compared to the drift resultant
from the speed and force of wave action against your
(and my) unprotected and unfaired sterns and adjacent
structure.

The drogue theorey is a 'running with it' theory; sea
anchor theory is 'stop the boat' to suvive or rest.
Like reefing a sail, best done early.  I'll stop first
and rest.

Sea anchor from the bows will also not fowl the props.

Recovery from the bows is a natural excercise.

When does Domino launch?

Very best,
Bill

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