Notes on the use of a Jordan drogue

NOTES ON THE USE OF A JORDAN DROGUE

 In 2015 I bought a Jordan-type series drogue for my 35ft gaff cutter Iron Bark II. She displaces 11 tonnes fully loaded so the drogue was 97m long with 124 cones. The leader and first section of drogue was 19mm double-braid nylon and the tail section 14mm double braid.

 In the following three years I sailed from Scotland to Labrador and did a circumnavigation via the southern capes with stops in Western Australia, New Zealand, the Antarctic Peninsula, Falkland Islands and Ireland.  I deployed the drogue a total of 11 times on this voyage, all in the Southern Ocean. Here is what I learned along the way.

 

Deployment

The Jordan series drogue is attached to the boat by a bridle that is led to either strong posts well aft or chain plates attached to the stern quarters. These attachment points need to be able to take a strain equal to about half the vessel's displacement. Iron Bark II is steel so providing adequate strong posts on the stern quarters was simple. A GRP vessel will probably use chain plates, which will be of similar dimensions to the shroud chainplates. Any shackles need to be able to take strain equal to about half of the vessel's displacement.

Initially I stowed the drogue in a large sail bag, with its weighted outboard end on top and the eyes of the bridle led to the top of the bag and thus accessible. When the time came to deploy the drogue, I hauled the bag into the cockpit, lashed it down and pulled the eyes at the end of the bridle out of the bag and looped them over the strong posts on the quarters with one leg of the bridle led around the stern, clear of rudder and self-steering gear. At this stage the boat was running at 4-6 knots under bare poles with the Aries servo-pendulum gear steering.

 Having checked there nothing was likely to foul, I threw the weighted outer end of the drogue overboard and leapt clear. The drogue ran out very rapidly. Any snarl at this stage would be a serious matter as there is a lot of strain on it.  Getting a hand or foot caught in a loop as the drogue ran out could be life threatening.

 Ideally the drogue runs through some sort of fair lead to prevent it flicking around the cockpit as it pays out, reducing the chances of it fouling on a winch or something similar. I ran it between two closely-spaced stanchions on Iron Bark II's stern, which worked well as they are strong and well attached. A GRP vessel’s stanchions are seldom strong enough for this and some other method will need to be devised to control the drogue as it runs out.

 A much better arrangement is for the drogue to have a dedicated deck locker that feeds the drogue out cleanly. On arrival in Australia, having at that stage used the drogue three times, I built a such a locker. The new locker let the drogue run out in a manner that was unlikely to foul anything. It also made easier to flake it down out neatly so that there were unlikely to be snarls when it was next used. Another benefit was that it eliminated the need to manhandle a bag filled with about 100 metres of rope further weighed down with over 100 cones. Getting that bag up the companionway when the drogue was dry was hard work; it was near the limits of my strength to do it when the nylon double braid was sodden.

 I have seen specially made holders consisting of a sheet of canvas with loops to hold the drogue. Doubtless they work and ensure the drogue runs out cleanly, but replacing the drogue into its holder in the confines of a small vessel is likely to be difficult. This means the drogue will not be ready for another deployment. This sort of holder is probably unsuitable for longer, rougher voyages, especially those in the Southern Ocean, where multiple deployments are likely.

 

Running with the drogue

The drogue ran out cleanly and immediately pulled the stern into the wind. Iron Bark II ran steadily downwind making about 1-1/4 knots through the water with no hint of broaching. Although she shipped a few wave tops, no heavy water came aboard. The strain on the drogue was considerable, but steady with no abrupt shocks. It was akin to being on a bungy cord. I concluded that I should have had this bit of equipment years ago and nothing in my subsequent experiences using the Jordan drogue has made me revise that opinion.

Before deploying the drogue, I tied a stout rope to the junction of the bridle legs and the drogue leader. This third leg to the bridle is a lazy line that I kept under just enough tension to stop it fouling on anything without taking any strain. The line makes it easier to get in the first few metres of the drogue on retrieval, but its chief function is to allow me to steer across the wind by up to 30°.

Drogue deployed with lazy line to the bridle junction. The lazy line is used for both steering and retrieval

To steer across the wind, I took tension on the lazy line, slightly shortened the bridle on the side that I want to turn towards. With the strain on the lazy line, I took another turn or two around the bollard with the bridle, then eased off the lazy line. The slightly asymmetrical bridle legs now steered the boat across the wind.

 In the southern hemisphere the wind shifts from northwest to southwest on the passage of a cold front. Running before the new southwest wind puts the old northwest sea abeam, which can be dangerous until the northwest swell dies away. Turning 20° or 30° to starboard and taking the old sea on the port quarter and the new sea on the starboard quarter is safer. As the old NW sea decreases, course is altered to run downwind by lengthening the shortened bridle leg, bringing the developing SW swell is more directly astern.

 

Retrieval

Once the weather moderated, I set about hauling the drogue back aboard. Ideally, I would wait until the wind was 15 knots or less, but deep in the Southern Ocean this could mean waiting a long time. More typically it was still blowing 25 to 30 knots and quite rough when I started to get the drogue back aboard. I used a 20-metre-long messenger line of 12mm diameter led forward from the cockpit, through a block attached to a strong point on the foredeck then back to the stern. This line was tied to the drogue on the stern quarter using a rolling hitch. I took a couple of turns around a sheet winch with the tail of this messenger line and hauled away. This immediately brought the drogue abeam, with the boat rolling heavily beam on to the seas. To get the drogue in, I would have to pull the boat sideways against wind and sea, which was clearly impossible. I changed the lead of the messenger so that it led between the stanchions that I had used to keep the drogue under control as it ran out. This kept the drogue over the stern as I hauled it in.

Retrieving the drogue using a stanchion as a fairlead keep the drogue streaming aft.

Once I sorted that out, retrieving the drogue was straightforward. I hauled on the retrieval line using a winch as a snubber (no handle) and each time the stern dipped to a wave I got in half a metre of slack. It was 7 metres from the winch to the turning block on the foredeck. When I had hauled in that much drogue and the rolling hitch reached the block at the bow, I belayed the drogue with a short length of line attached to the stern quarter, again using a rolling hitch. With the weight off the messenger line, I
could then haul the newly-retrieved length of drogue back into the cockpit, undo the retrieval line and reattached it to the drogue close to the belaying line. I then cast off the belaying line and repeated the process, getting 7 metres of drogue in with each cycle. The amount retrieved on each cycle of course depends on boat size and whether it has a centre cockpit.

Retrieving the drogue with a messenger line led through a turning block on the foredeck then aft to a sheet winch

 Unexpectedly, I found the only time that I needed to use the winch handle was to haul in the last 20 metres of so of the drogue. At this stage the drogue was hanging nearly straight down and I was pulling the weighted end directly up with little help from the boat’s motion, which I found to be hard work so I used the winch to wind it up, rather than just using the winch for snubbing.

 I used a messenger line as the drum on my cockpit winch was not large enough to prevent the drogue slipping if I lead it directly to the winch. The relatively large diameter drogue line did not grip well when there was a drogue cone on the winch drum, hence the use of a smaller-diameter messenger line. A vessel with larger winches could probably lead the drogue directly to a suitably-sited winch. I am told by a very experience friend that with two people to do the job, it goes much more quickly when the lighter person tails on the winch and the heavier person sweats on the drogue aft of the winch and no messenger line is necessary if the winch is large enough.

 The time taken to retrieve the drogue varied with wind and sea state. In a rough sea and 25 knot wind, it takes me 2-1/2 to 3 hours to get the drogue back aboard, coiled down and the boat sailing again. Hauling in the drogue requires a steady, sustained effort but no great feats strength. I am neither young nor strong, being over 70 years old and weighing less than 60kg, and can do it so the job should be within the capabilities of any one who is moderately fit.

Different cockpit layouts will require different ways of retrieval. If the method chosen is impossibly heavy (as mine was initially when the drogue streamed abeam with the messenger led directly to the winch), look to modify how things are being done. Retrieval is a matter of technique and persistence rather than brute strength, the emphasis being on persistence.

 

Problems, actual and potential

Fouling the self-steering gear.

In December 2016, I continued on from Western Australia towards Cape Horn, making my easting in the west winds south of 40°S. Predictably I encountered several gales/storms in which I used the drogue. Much has been written about the seas that develop in those latitudes and they really are huge, majestic and terrifying. Some were so large that Iron Bark II was nearly becalmed in the troughs and the drogue went slack, allowing a bight of the bridle to wash around the self steering gear. Twice I managed to free it; the third time I was not quick enough and the drogue tore off the whole lower leg of the self-steering gear when the boat surged forward at the top of the next wave.

 This problem is likely to occur on any yacht that has a self-steering gear over the stern that does not have its bottom end  attached to the hull. A servo pendulum gear or an auxiliary rudder type are the most likely to have this issue. When I rebuilt the self-steering system in New Zealand, I changed it to a trim tab on the main rudder, which eliminated the problem. A vessel with a spade rudder well aft might consider running a deflector wire from the rudder to the back of the keel to prevent the drogue from taking a turn around the rudder with potentially catastrophic results.

 Damage to the cones after multiple deployments

Without a working self-steering gear, I was unlikely to be able to get around Cape Horn before the onset of winter, so I turned north towards New Zealand to refit. I used the drogue several more times before I arrived in New Zealand. By the time I got there many of its cloth cones were damaged and some were nearly demolished. At that stage I had used the drogue six times for a total of 138 hours. About half of that time was in gale or stronger conditions; the other half was waiting for the wind to ease enough for me to retrieve the drogue.

 The damage to the cones was due to the fabric fraying in the same manner that a flag flogs itself to pieces. The tapes, stitching and hemming was not damaged. On arrival in New Zealand, I contacted OceanBrake, the supplier of this drogue and they immediately offered to replace the cones at no charge. I thought this very generous and asked that, once they had sourced a different material for the new cones, that they send me replacement for half of them.

Cone element that disintegrated after multiple deployments

 The cones that failed were made of woven polyester with a rubber-like backing film. This backing film flaked off after extensive use which then allowed the relatively loosely woven polyester to shake itself to pieces. The new cones were beautifully made of heavy-duty woven polyester cloth with no fill or backing material with heavy-duty tape tabling at both ends of the cone. In the spirit of enquiry, I ordered a set of cones from Ace Sailmakers, another major supplier of Jordan-type drogues. These cones were made of heavy sailcloth and only hemmed at the big end.

 When I refurbished my drogue, I alternated cones from OceanBrake and Ace Sailmakers to compare their durability. On the next leg of the voyage from New Zealand back into the Atlantic by way of the Antarctic Peninsula and Cape Horn, I used this combination drogue five times for a total of 5-1/4 days. At the end of it, the sailcloth cones from Ace Sailmakers had minor fraying around the unhemmed small ends while the cones from OceanBrake were in pristine condition. Either looked good for much more hard usage. Both companies have had problems with the longevity of their cones in the past and each has successfully addressed the issue. I believe that the new-style cones supplied by OceanBrake and Ace Sailmakers are both fit for purpose. I have a slight preference for those from OceanBrake, but either will do.

OceanBrake and Ace Sailmakers cones alternated to replace those that failed due to fatigue. The white cones with green tabling at each end are from OceanBrake, the white cones with no tabling are from Ace Sailmakers. The yellow cone is one of the original type that failed.

Cones made of rip stop nylon have been supplied by some companies. It is reported that their life in heavy weather is only a few hours. I have no experience with them but believe they are best avoided.

 Use of Dyneema in place of nylon double braid

This seems to be a potentially valuable improvement, dramatically reducing the bulk and weight of the drogue, especially when it is wet. Dyneema is very slippery, which may complicate its retrieval as it is likely to slip on a winch barrel, but this problem should be solvable. I believe OceanBrake has done some research on this problem and offers a solution to it.

Conclusions

 The Jordan drogue is a valuable, potentially life saving tool for managing small craft in heavy weather. Its worth is greatest in small vessels with weak crews sailing in the high southern latitudes. I would not make another long Southern Ocean voyage without one, particularly in a vessel under 40ft.