Hey Ron,

It was off the SC/GA seacoast several years ago, I wanted to give it a whirl to sort it all out... Wind as about 25 with higher gusts at the time, seas pretty steep as is typical through there...

Naturally, as soon as I had it deployed, the winds began to moderate noticeably...(grin) So, I only rode to it for less than an hour, but here are my impressions...

You've really got to take care deploying it, make sure everything is ready to run before putting anything in the water... I did pretty much the same as I do when deploying the rope and spinner for my towed generator. Lashed the anchor/bitter end to one corner of the transom, then let it out from the bridle end until half of it is out, then cut the lashing... that all went pretty smoothly, but it could be a whole different ballgame in more extreme conditions, and could be a very easy way to damage or lose your windvane... I can't imagine having to try it in a full gale, with something like a tender on davits, or half of the crap one sees festooning the sterns of so many boats out there today...

The much-touted "bungee effect" was definitely noticeable, even in such relatively moderate conditions, it settled things down pretty dramatically... I continued to run with the vane doing the steering, but even lashing the helm wouldn't have made much difference... In true storm force conditions, of course, things could be entirely different. You might feel the need to try to steer, but I imagine just lying to the drogue would be pretty effective...

Retrieving it was not nearly as difficult as I had imagined. I simply hove-to, and hauled it in over the quarter by hand - tiring for sure, but certainly do-able on my boat... I actually made a bit of a blunder deploying it in such shallow water, it was hanging pretty much straight down, and I suspect the anchor at the end of the drogue (22 lb Bruce, in my case) was laying on the bottom from time to time, I was lucky it didn't bite... (grin)

Main difficulty in retrieval, for me, is the fact that I've used Amsteel for mine, so it's pretty 'slippery'... A pair of those 'grabber' type gloves probably would have helped a bit...

Next time, although I've never seen this mentioned in any of the accounts I've read re the JSD, I'd think about attaching a fender to the end of the drogue at the anchor, using a line about 20' in length... I would hope this would serve to keep the end from sinking too much, and exerting too much of a downward pull on the stern, which a boat like mine is definitely vulnerable to, given her lack of buoyancy aft... Also, I think it would simply be nice to know where the end of the drogue is in the seas, and I would hope would greatly lighten the load during retrieval...

All in all, I was very favorably impressed with what I saw... But of course, I would be quite happy if I never had cause to put it in the water ever again... (grin)

best regards,

Jon