'PATHFINDER' Sea trials in storm force 10 and 8m breaking seas off Cork Harbour, Ireland 12 January 2019

After a long period of freezing weather an intense storm developed of the South coast of Ireland, blowing at up to storm force 10 for 12hrs from the SE, a big 8m sea had built up which was breaking exceptionally heavily at the mouth of the harbour.  Roches Point lighthouse was recording 60kts at the time of the sea trials and the sea state was extreme. Care was needed facing into the bigger breaking seas as she was bodily thrown backwards when hit by such a force of water. Pathfinder handled it all fine, being very stable even in such big seas and we felt comfortable and relatively safe with the conditions, as bad as they were.

Below are some photographs from the day, visibility was very poor in rain, so the quality is not great, but an impression of the conditions can be appreciated.

Its always difficult to judge a waves height, but looking at the last photo in the sequence of stills captured from video footage, you can see that the crest is above her transom and her bow just in the trough. Factoring her 16.5m length and resulting 45 degree angle your probably looking at an 11m (35ft) wave height, pretty big!

You can see the video from this day on you tube- See the video-  CLICK HERE