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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

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my first hurricane

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sdaly66
Navigator

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USA
143 Posts

Initially Posted - 09/15/2003 : 09:32:49

...and I sure am excited (no, that's anxious).

Ok folks. As some of you know, I've had my 250 WB for about 6 weeks, and along comes Isabelle. I'm in the Rhode River (a tributary to the West River) on the bay. It's a known hurricane hole, and the owners in my marina generally agree that the biggest risk is low water and not a surge (I half believe this).

As a newbie, I would be forever indebted to those who can provide advice. I'll be going up Wednesday to double bow and stern lines - but I don't know what wlse to do. The board is up, and I'll be raising the rudder too. I'm stern-in my slip and have fenders aplenty to deploy.

Should I turn bow-in? What other advice do you folks have? Like I said I'm new to this.

Thanks in advance.

This site is a GREAT resource full of VERY helpful folks.

250 WB 1996 Hull #205

Thank you all.

Edited by - on

ClamBeach
Master Marine Consultant

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3072 Posts

Response Posted - 09/15/2003 : 10:10:09

How much effort is it to completely remove your rudder? That would get a vulnerable piece of hardware out of the way.

Roller furling? Get the sail off, Take your main off too. Remove everything that adds to windage... dodgers... rail covers, weather cloths etc.

Seal openings that could be penetrated by wind-driven rainwater.

Currently maintaining two holes in the water...'77 Venture 23 and new to the family,
'78 Catalina 25

Edited by - on

Dave Bristle
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 09/15/2003 : 11:43:04

To Clam's list, I'll add removing the motor--another vulnerable item. I'd leave her bow-out, and cross the stern lines (instead of making them to the closest side). Make sure you have spring lines at least from a stern cleat to something toward the bow (a dock or piling), and ideally the reverse as well. Make sure your lines will allow for low water--as in the boat sitting on the bottom. If you're on floating docks, high water isn't a problem until it floats the dock off the pilings (a very real issue here, where NORMAL tides are 7 - 8.5' and storm surges funnel in from the Atlantic).

In addition to removing the sails, take off the boom (it should stow below), and consider dropping and storing the mast if possible. If not, attach your halyards to stanchion bases to keep them away from the mast and spreaders. Then wish her well and go take care of yourself.

What a way to start! We're watching closely up here--these things have been known to "skip" off the coast and slide further north than predicted. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of people are going to have a bad day.

Dave Bristle - 1985 C-25 #5032 SR-FK-Dinette-Honda "Passage" in SW CT

Edited by - dave bristle on 09/15/2003 11:44:20

Edited by - on

sdaly66
Navigator

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USA
143 Posts

Response Posted - 09/15/2003 : 11:51:50

Good advice from all, thank you!

One more thing...I'm looking for a good spot to surf on Friday - thinking about the break at the south end of Fenwick Island.

Any suggestions?

Yes, I'm just kidding!

This site is a GREAT resource full of VERY helpful folks.

250 WB 1996 Hull #205

Thank you all.

Edited by - on

deastburn
Captain

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USA
334 Posts

Response Posted - 09/15/2003 : 12:17:14

YES, reduce windage wherever and however you can.

The one other thing I would add is CHAFING gear. I use two-inch fire hose on my mooring pennants where they go over the bow chocks and continue it well down the lines so that, as the boat swings, there is no rub of the pennant against the hull. In a berth, you want to make sure that wherever the dock lines might rub, they are protected against chafe. When a nylon line rubs, it heats up. Add this to the heating caused by the "push and pull" of a boat swinging against a swaying dock, and the actual rope can fail due to weakening from the heat. If you are not tied up to a floating dock, or in a place where storm surge is not a problem, I would IMHO seek out a mooring or haul the boat.

BTW did anyone see that film of Fabian in Bermuda with moored boats--no sails removed--in what looked like ten to fifteen foot seas in the harbor? Pretty scary...

Dave on "Wood Duck" (#2616)

Edited by - on

Dave Bristle
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 09/15/2003 : 12:25:43

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
One more thing...I'm looking for a good spot to surf on Friday - thinking about the break at the south end of Fenwick Island.

Any suggestions?
<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>
Should be pipin' off Nags Head... (Don't thank me!)

Dave Bristle - 1985 C-25 #5032 SR-FK-Dinette-Honda "Passage" in SW CT

Edited by - on

sdaly66
Navigator

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USA
143 Posts

Response Posted - 09/15/2003 : 12:42:47

Thanks Dave,

But I've changed my mind. I'm going to go offshore and kite surf this baby - Kawabunga!!!!!!!

This site is a GREAT resource full of VERY helpful folks.

250 WB 1996 Hull #205

Thank you all.

Edited by - on

Shawn
1st Mate

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USA
62 Posts

Response Posted - 09/16/2003 : 00:01:22

I don't know the area you will be using for your hurricane hole, so I can only repeat a couple of prior suggestions. Remove everything from the deck that will create windage (wind resistance) and can be easily removed. Sails absolutely have to be removed. No matter how difficult it is, get them stowed below or at home. The wind will rip your cover off from the main without much effort, even if it can't break the sailties, it will flog your main to shreds between them. Roller jib must also come down for the same reasons. Chafing gear is also a must. Try to attach it to the boat, not the line. This allows the line to move as much as it wants while your chafe gear remains in place and does it's job.
Additionally, use every peice of line you have available to make a connection between the boat and a solid point, anchor, tree, large rock, dock piling, anything and everything that is unlikely to move during the storm. You also have to protect against chafe at this end. With all of these lines, you should create a backup for any lines that break, or cleats that fail, anchors that drag, pilings that break, etc.. Talk to everyone you can who has used this anchorage before for a storm. People are incredibly helpful in times like this. It could be your boat that wipes them out because you don't know how set up properly. Don't be shy about getting after someone else who does a half-*ss job setting their boat up. It could be them who wipes you out.
Most important, track the storm. Think about where the wind will be coming from. Get a map or a chart out and draw a pic of the storm on it. The wind changes direction in each quadrant of the storm. Your boat will be hit by winds from all points on the compass if the eye passes directly over you. The leading edge of the storm is usually the strongest. You have to add the speed of the wind to the speed the storm is traveling (ie: the storm is moving n.w. at 10k with winds at 100k. Winds from the n.w. will be 110k).
Again, do everything you can to prep the boat. If your boat is damaged (God forbid), you don't want to be asking yourself, "if I would have just did...")
Good luck, and stay safe.

Shawn
1980 C25 tr/fk #1960

Edited by - on

Dave Bristle
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 09/16/2003 : 10:52:55

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
...Chafing gear is also a must. Try to attach it to the boat, not the line. This allows the line to move as much as it wants while your chafe gear remains in place and does it's job...<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>
That's a new one on me... I always thought the protection should be wrapped around the line so the line doesn't chafe on the chafing gear, and the chafing gear chafes on the hardware. But Shawn lives in hurricane country and I (hopefully) don't. What does anyone else think about that?

Dave Bristle - 1985 C-25 #5032 SR-FK-Dinette-Honda "Passage" in SW CT

Edited by - on

ronrryan
Admiral

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USA
561 Posts

Response Posted - 09/16/2003 : 11:04:37

We have been through several hurricanes in the past, both afloat at docks, afloat on moorings, and ashore blocked up. All the advice given is good, act on as much as you can. If Possible, haul out. If not, if possible get the mast down (you aint goin nowheres). If you must stay in, visualize the boat trying to rise up 8-10-12-15 feet from normal. In other words, place the piling ends of your lines as high as you can get them, and run them as long as possible. Use every line available, anchor lines, etc. CHAFE is the enemy, bind the lines wherever they touch anything--chocks, rails, etc. IF you could also cover the area of the boat where they chafe-OK, but you will probably be better able to bind or cover (or both) the lines. All lines doubled, and watch them chafing on each other. Tripled if possible. When you think you are ready grab ahold of your boat and begin to surge it back and forth in the slip as hard as you can. Get your back into it. Many folks dont do this and are surprised how much lines stretch, sometimes allow the boat to strike the dock severely. After this, as has been advised: people come first, boats can be replaced. God Bless, will say prayers for your safety ron srsk Orion SW FL

Edited by - on

deastburn
Captain

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USA
334 Posts

Response Posted - 09/16/2003 : 12:18:40

Just some thoughts on chafing gear:

1) Fire hose (the cloth kind) is the preferred gear for dock and mooring lines. A thin line run through an eye hole on the hose can be used to attach one end of the line through a twist of the dockline or the mooring line to keep it in place. Or it can be attached to the cleat on the boat. The line runs through it and rubs against the woven cloth of the hose rather than anything sharp, or moving in a contrary direction (such as another dockline, or a part of the boat.

2) Some (expensive and large) mooring lines have leather chafe gear attached to the line where they hit the bow when the boat swings.

I have seen people using garden hose or other plastic tubing. Problem with this is at the sharp ends, against which a "snapping" or "tugging" dockline can cut itself to shreds.

Imagine the bow of your boat on a mooring rising and falling four or five feet every twenty seconds and imagine the mooring pennant snapping against the bow.

So, to other precautions I have picked up along the way:

1) It is a good idea on a mooring to have two pennants of quite different lengths. This first is the real mooring pennant. The second, or "safety" is long enough never to become taut as the boat swings. So if the first fails, the second probably won't. Problem with this is as the wind changes, they tend to twist together, and that introduces another set of problems. So, if you use this method, it is important to put a collar under the shackle on the mooring ball to allow it to turn with the boat. These collars are usually cut from pieces of old tire.

2) Take in the anchor off the bow rollers. As the boat dances in the wind and waves, the dock or mooring lines can rub themselves to shreds against the anchor.

Let's hope none of this is necessary. But it only raisn when I forget my umbrella...

Dave on "Wood Duck" (#2616)

Edited by - on

Champipple
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
6855 Posts

Response Posted - 09/17/2003 : 09:38:48

I got this from the scuttlebut newsletter It might help you out.

HURRICANE ISABEL
With Hurricane Isabel expecting to make landfall in the United States
on
Thursday, Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatU.S.) has a
few
last minute tips for boaters to prepare.

The real threat is storm surge, not wind, say BoatU.S. Technical
Services
Director Bob Adriance. "Wind driven storm surges of ten feet or more
are
possible with a storm the size of Isabel. In areas like the upper
Chesapeake, which may or may not experience hurricane force winds,
there
could still be a significant surge," says Adriance.

Try to Haul Out: A study by MIT after Hurricane Gloria found that boats
are
safest on land. Even if a boat is blown off its jack stands, the damage
is
likely to be less severe that if it were skewered by a piling or bashed
against a dock for several hours. Small open boats are especially
vulnerable and should be placed on trailers and taken inland.

Staying in the water: Most marinas aren't equipped to pull all of their
boats. Many boats in the mid-Atlantic states are at fixed docks and
most
will likely still be in the water when Isabel comes ashore. A study by
the
BoatU.S. Hurricane Catastrophe Response Team found that as many as half
the
boats at docks that were damaged in Hurricane Fran could have been
saved by
using better docklines -- lines that were longer, larger, arranged
better,
and/or better protected against chafing. - BoatU.S. website, complete
story:

http://www.boatus.com/news/releases/2003/september/isabel.asp

D. Wolff - "The Flying Wasp" #401 sr/sk
Chief Measurer C-25/250 National Assn.
<img src="http://www.flags.com/images/layout/category_images/t_3964.jpg" border=0>

Edited by - on

sdaly66
Navigator

Members Avatar

USA
143 Posts

Response Posted - 09/22/2003 : 08:37:04

Once again,

Thank you to all for the kind advice in advance of the storm. Up in the Rhode River, we had an 8 foot surge with 2 - 3 foot waves to boot.

Thanks to all the tips here, and a few from fellow tenants at Rhode River Marina, my damage was restricted to that caused by debris - at it was not major in any way.

Hope everyone else faired as well as I did.

This site is a GREAT resource full of VERY helpful folks.

250 WB 1996 Hull #205

Thank you all.

Edited by - on

ClamBeach
Master Marine Consultant

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3072 Posts

Response Posted - 09/22/2003 : 09:49:57

Glad you faired well... I see there is another hurricane sweeping up Baja California this morning...

That's their 2nd one this year. In one of the most arid regions of the world, they already have 15" of rain !

Currently maintaining two holes in the water...'77 Venture 23 and new to the family,
'78 Catalina 25

Edited by - on

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