In the eye of a storm

Every sailor should see Lin and Larry Pardey's new video Storm Tactics, says ROBIN BAILEY.

Another Sydney-to-Hobart ocean racing classic is over, this time with no serious drama. That wasn't the case in 1998, the race Australian yachting reporter Rob Mundle recounts in Fatal Storm.

His book graphically describes how the best-equipped boats and the most experienced offshore sailors can get into trouble. It also covers the dramatic rescues that helped to keep the death toll to just six.

There were 115 starters in that 54th Sydney-Hobart race, but only 44 reached Hobart. Fifty-five sailors were winched to safety and five yachts sank. Those are the sort of statistics that people planning to sail offshore must take into account.

Images taken from the air during the 1998 race are included in Storm Tactics, the 84-minute video just released by New Zealand-based voyagers Lin and Larry Pardey. The images emphasise the message the Pardeys bring in a concise, practical, non-preaching and often lighthearted way.

When they are not at sea, the Pardeys are based at Kawau Island, but they still spend a lot of time in the United States. Canadian-born Larry and American Lin are New Zealand citizens and their combined sailing CV covers their experiences in a wide range of sailboats and with more than 175,000 sea miles (Larry) and 156,000 (Lin) in their logbooks.

There is no question that they are well qualified to produce an instructional video on the age-old sailor's safety valve of heaving-to.

They already have to their credit a heap of books on all aspects of sailing offshore, from building the boat to feeding the crew. They wrote a chapter on heaving-to in their Storm Tactics Handbook. That book has been praised in Yachting Monthly, Ocean Navigator, Sail magazine and Practical Boat Owner. It has also been enthusiastically reviewed in sailing magazines around the world.

The pair have been called "the enablers", because their books and videos have encouraged sailors of all ages to stop dreaming and start doing.

The video takes the viewer from the comfort of yacht club dreaming to South Africa's windswept Cape of Storms to watch a demonstration of setting and retrieving a para-anchor. Then you sail with them aboard Talesin, their 9m cruising yacht, for a record-breaking against-the-wind rounding of Cape Horn, with storm sails in action in 130km/h winds.

They demonstrate the technical details of storm tactics for both modern and classic boats. The objective is to show how to prepare both boat and crew to eliminate fear and face heavy weather with a plan. They discuss in detail gear and equipment, including special sails for heavy weather.

The video and its companion handbook should be well viewed and digested before venturing more than a few miles offshore in a yacht. They should also be in the ship's library for future revision.

* Lin & Larry Pardey