V Twin

How about using a wind surfing/kayak type lasoo tied to your foot or would this restrict moving about the boat/water? It seems to me that you want to ensure that the helm and boat don't part company in the event of a capsize.

Good point! I never considered inspecting them since they are still packed in the mast.  I'll have to take the mast down and inspect their condition.   The Vareo mast has a holein the bottom which fits into the mast pot.  The main problem encountered by Vareo sailers is that the water in the mast pot rushes to the top of the mast in a capsise thus accelerating inversion.  Some owners use the base of a bottle to cup the mast base and prevent this from occuring. I had tried this but found that removing the mast through the bridge could cuase damage due to the increased diameter of the mast (when the bottle base gets stuck fast to the base of the mast and has to be removed as a whole)

Edited by bferry - 25 Apr 12 at 8:35am

Originally posted by rogue Yep, although not sure how he'd launch it off the beach!

The gap under the hull seems made to measure for retracting a lifting bulb keel, however having a keel would be a major departure from the design concept of the boat.  I've got my vareo mast sealed at the top and filled with ping pong balls and it does help slow an inversion, but not prevent it, especially in a blow with the windage and waves pushing on the hull. 

I'm not saying a sealed mast or a little mast head flotation is a bad thing, but ........................

The  weight of the water filled mast is a red herring while inverted as it;s effectively zero'extra' weight while it;s under the surface  , what  makes it hard to right to 90ish degrees is the just the area of the sails  and the tonnes of water you have to move to get the sail through the water to the surface ( consider  the size of the foils vs the size of the rig ... ) once you are at 90ish degrees a mast full of water does not help but once you've got that little bit of effort in the mast should drain relatively quickly ... 

hull buoyancy and it;s distribution is important as arguably there are boats with insufficent buoyancy ( i.e. those that swamp and are barely able to keep the plate case or transom above the surface ), sufficient buoyancy but in the wrong places ( big side tanks that raise the hull too far out of the water for easy righting but  the boat  comes up with some water on board which can be cleared via transom flaps / self bailers  / self draining  ) and some with excess buoyancy ( even worse version of the problems  with  buoyancy in the wrong place)  these all post problems to righting and recovery from capsize