Jeanne Socrates

Nov 23, 2016

On Sunday evening October 24th off the coast of Oregon, Jeanne Socrates on her sailing yacht S/V Nereida, found herself in 50 to 60 knot winds for the next 2½ days.

Having sustained damage to her staysail and drogue system, Jeanne ended her attempt to become the oldest sailor to sail around the world, single-handed. Jeanne motor sailed back to Victoria for repairs.

With repairs underway, Jeanne was organizing the boat for her next attempt at oldest person to solo sail unassisted around the world. I arranged with Jeanne to meet onboard her boat to talk about the storm that had forced her return to Victoria.

During our interview Jeanne showed me what was left of her Jordan Series Drogue. Many of the cones that make her drogue system were torn to shreds. A winch can be used to reel in the drogue because of the small size of the cones. The frayed cone kept getting cot on one another as they were winched in. It took six hours to bring the drogue back on Board S/V Nereida. Jeanne’s new drogue system is made with a strong Dacron fabric.

“The Jordan Series Drogue is a safety device designed to prevent the capsize and damage of both monohull and multihull sailing yachts and other vessels operating in the open ocean, in the event of a “worst case” breaking wave strike, as well as improving the motion of the boat in storm waves and to reduce drift”.

In Jeanne’s own words, “once the drogue is deployed off the stern of the boat, the 300ft long drogue with a short chain at the end and the 124 small cones will slow the boat to between 1 to 1 1/2 half knots and the boat will not pitchpole or broach.”

http://jordanseriesdrogue.com/
You can follow Jeanne’s progress at http://svnereida.com/blog