Earlier today we had a 'fast mover' come through with very little lead time, and I had been watching the radar very closely as I put in a 25 mile bike ride and was thinking about going sailing too. Well, the wind died, and I could see some weather building up to the west of my house, moving east, so instead of going sailing, I went to the grocery store.
30 minutes later, I was coming out of the store, and I looked to the west, and it was getting dark (at 4pm), so I knew someone was coming, but the winds were still calm, no far off thunder.
I get home, stow the groceries, and take the 4 dogs out back to pee and feed them...
That's when I heard the first CRACK/BOOM of some far off lightning. Still, no rain, no wind, so I hook the dogs up and get their water and go back in the house to get their food... that's when I hear the next BIG CRASH/BANG of some close in lightning... so I run out back and bring the dogs in, just as the first rain drops are starting to fall.
I get them all in and about 2 minutes later, all hell breaks loose!
I live in FL, we see thunderstorms almost every day in the summer, but this thing was HUGE! NOT your average thunderstorm! I look out back and the trees are laid over, the lake is black, with 5' white caps, the rain is coming down in sheets, sideways. Then a few more BIG lightning strikes, and KABOOM! the power goes out. The wind was HOWLING, like Hurricane noise, and when I looked out front, I could see broken tree branches blowing down the road, in 5" of water.
Well...I was very glad I had chosen to go to the grocery store, instead of out sailing!
Didn't last too long, only about 10 minutes, then it cleared up, I was very glad my boat was tied down in the back yard! Because it was rocking and rolling, even tied down. On the evening news, they were saying the town just to the south of us (Lake Placid) was getting hail.
But this started as just a small bunch of rain, looked pretty lame on the radar, and then it blew up very fast, becoming a HUGE thunderstorm, in the span of 30 minutes, probably what happened to those guys in Alabama.
I think the biggest 'problem' in this event was recognition. Nobody knew the winds would turn out to be 80mph. I've been out when 'a storm was coming' and you can usually see them coming from a ways off, you'll certainly hear it if there's lightning in it... but I'm usually thinking, is it going to be 20mph...or 30...or maybe 40? But 80?? I never would have thought it would have been blowing THAT hard!
I think that's probably why so many guys were caught up short of taking the sails down, etc, hindsight is always 20-20.
So you're going to intentionally destroy your boat so the storm doesn't? Great idea. Apparently those proposing this have never been on a dismasted boat. The rig and sails will destroy a lot besides themselves in conditions way more benign than what they had last weekend. Like was said earlier by Karl the 2nd, you deal with it as it comes with the parameters at that time. The armchair quarterbacking here is almost as bad as SA.
If you are going to intentionally unpin a sidestay in big waves make sure you somehow unpin the windward side. We had a windward side stay break in breaking waves and the mast kept sliding across the boat to a certain point as each wave swept past then it would slide past the other way after the wave, so we had to keep jumping the mast. The rig worked as a great sea anchor once we got it off the boat still attached but we got in a lot of trouble once we fully jettisoned it.
We watched a Stingray with 28ft mast cartwheel sideways with the top of the mast touching the water and the hulls about 26ft in the air after a huge gust that smashed the fleet
Is it unreasonable to expect someone on the RC boat to monitor the weather radar and then radio the fleet when things start to get iffy?
I guess RC would need to be in range of cell phone towers or have weather radar on the boat, or have information relayed from onshore. Would also require the competitors have VHF radios on and monitoring.
Being sensitive to changing/deteriorating conditions is something we all have to take responsibility for. But I readily admit a storm front moving at 60-80mph would be tough to avoid if you're several miles from safety.
It's a shame we can't all be as brilliant as you! You are truly a legend.
Couple things I wouldn't do, leave the boat or drop the mast purposely.
I understand (a little) why cats sailing around buoys don't have jib furlers. For distance racing I don't understand it at all. There's knifes, radio's, GPS and on and on yet the most important thing to do (my opinion) first is reduce sail area. Is it because it weighs too much or is it too much drag? Silly.
People practice sailing drills so they can be faster but how many practice dropping the main on the water. I know my main won't release on starboard tack but does on port tack. That's good info to know. Do you know?
I think the biggest 'problem' in this event was recognition. Nobody knew the winds would turn out to be 80mph. I've been out when 'a storm was coming' and you can usually see them coming from a ways off, you'll certainly hear it if there's lightning in it... but I'm usually thinking, is it going to be 20mph...or 30...or maybe 40? But 80?? I never would have thought it would have been blowing THAT hard!
I think that's probably why so many guys were caught up short of taking the sails down, etc, hindsight is always 20-20.
Indeed - a lot of racers might be inclined to approach that storm with a little more
yee-haw!
. I remember a Tybee500 start with a fairly significant storm cell just offshore and to the North. It was cranking on the beach for the start. Mischa and others headed right for the storm cell offshore. I thought they were crazy. I finished about 4 hours behind them that day and re-evaluated my desire to stay away from those storms.
And, BTW, I would never recommend tying yourself to the boat.
(Turn your speakers down, wind noise)
Mark Ederer http://www.wlox.com/story/28912528/...
So, I was in the race; a few details being left out that need to be considered.
- The DI race is an 18 mile long distance race; the more
durable
cats tend to race out on Saturday and back on Sunday. The rest of us sail back after finishing.
- The regatta host rotates between three area clubs with boats attending from all over the region; most of the cats launched from FYC, but a couple left from BYC as well. e.g. there was not a central point where all of the boats and sailors were guaranteed to be at one time.
- VHF radios were not a required item, but they did contact the skippers and request that we had one on the boat for purpose of over early notifications. Even if we had carried one, it would have been turned off and stowed; had it been turned on, I don't know that we would hear it assuming the RC did make some kind of announcement about weather.
- Due to a
hiccup
with race management, the start was postponed by an hour; looking at it now, that extra hour would have made a big difference...
- Historically entries have been as high as 175 boats; this year there were ~120 boats, of which 10 were beach cats. The cats included a N20c, highly modified T, C2 F18, Bim 18HT, H20, N17 with the balance being H16's; quite a broad range of speed there.
- We watched the forecast all week; my primary means are the NOAA marine site and wunderground. As of Saturday morning, the NOAA didn't even give a small craft advisory for Mobile Bay and simply stated,
chance of thunderstorms
; not,
HOLY SH*T, WATCH OUT!!
We saw the line on the radar, but based on speed and distance expected that it would be there later in the evening.
- Brief synopsis of our day:
Great race conditions, somewhat windy, but nothing crazy (gusts to ~22) with a moderate chop. The boat performed better than expected and we crossed ahead of Kirk on the N20c by ~1/2 a mile with ~8 miles to go. We went for flat water and didn't tack to cover; he got a huge lift up the inside and beat us by ~5 minutes in a now light and dying breeze. We finished, turned around and put the kite up for the ride home.
Breeze came back a bit and we were clocking 15-16 downwind back to FYC; we heard thunder with about 8 miles to go and started looking at the radar. I keep my cell in a dry bag in my vest for just this reason. The storm still looked a ways off, but was closer than expected. As we went, we noticed that it had sped up since that morning and were making sure to get to the beach as quickly as possible.
We passed Kirk and hit the beach about 5 minutes before he did; pulled the boat up and started to drop cloth. He needed help getting his boat up the beach, so we went to assist before getting our own sails down. By this time lightning was CLOSE and we knew it was about to be on us.
Pulled the jib and rolled it, had the main on the deck and were starting to roll it up as well when all hell broke loose. The N20c started making it's way across the yard at the YC and was only saved by the trap wires snagging in a tree. Kirk helped us hold the boat down, but even without sails up, it took all three of us and it was still trying to get up and go. I was sitting on the stbd hull, looking up wind with one hand on the mast rotation and one on the unrolled mainsail.
As the only person with the vantage point to look up wind, I was calling flying boats and debris as stuff came our way to warn Brian and Kirk. I feel certain that we experienced 70+ mph winds and was surprised that we didn't have one of the big trees just windward of us come down. I've been outside and within 1/4 mile of a tornado and that is the closest thing that I can think of to what this was like, but instead of lasting for 60-90 seconds, the insane wind held for 5-6 minutes! We could see that out on the beach the sea state was BAD and that the wave had built to ~5'. Even with the T trying to fly away, we yelled back and forth regarding the whereabouts of the others....
Unfortunately after several minutes, I couldn't keep the mainsail down any longer with one hand, but couldn't even think about letting go of the mast. The deep chord on the Marstrom 20 mast makes it oscillate like mad in that much breeze; it would have destroyed itself and almost certainly flipped the boat had it not stayed under control. Even with it held straight into the wind, it took all three of us to hold the boat down.
The wind finally backed enough to go recover the now thrashed main (this was it's first race) and start removing debris from the boat and finish our tear down. We immediately started trying to contact the other cat sailors, but to no avail; within another 30-45 minutes though, they started to trickle in, driven by good Samaritans from where they had come ashore during the storm. The last of the
fast
boats to be accounted for was Andy and Rundell, they had sailed past the YC and had to feel their way along the shore to find the club again. Lucky for them, they hit the beach just a minute or two before the storm and were able to hold their boat down even with the sails up.
By now emergency vehicles and news crews were showing up at FYC, we decided to eat at the club and ended up talking to a couple of news crews and other sailors to start piecing together what had transpired out on the water.
Got up Sunday and went to pick up pieces of boats strewn up the coat line.
- Regarding best course of action if faced with those conditions:
Having been on the water, ~1 1/2 miles off shore when the storm hit on the last day of the Worrell in '02, I can tell you that flipping and/or turtle isn't a very fun situation. The boat was still doing 4-5 kts on it's side, which resulted in breaking the top 3-4 battens and damaging the main sail. Honestly though, you don't have a choice, there is no keeping them upright in those conditions. The boats that were destroyed were ridden
to the beach
capsized and then pile driven into rock and wood seawalls. They would have never been able to go full turtle and if they had, even more complications could have arisen; imagine now having mast, sails, rigging, loose in the water and having to negotiate that while trying to not get smashed into the shore by 6' waves filled with debris blown/washed off of nearby docks.
Best possible plan, get to shore and ride it out from there if possible.
I don't know the H16 guys, but almost all of the other cat sailors are long time friends and I consider us very lucky to have not had someone seriously injured or worse.
It's my opinion that for the most part, we, the beach cat group, were better prepared than most of the monohull guys. We're forced to deal with the elements and aren't provided with the shelter, comfort and assurance that most mono's bring. For those reasons, we tend to be more appropriately dressed for the conditions and are almost always wearing a life jacket.
The number one thing that I told the news people and we discussed as a group was that, we are our own arbiters of safety and our brain is the #1 piece of equipment we carry. Know your limits/abilities, maintain your equipment, plan within reason for the conditions and at some point, that's the best you can do short of taking up golf...
Michael McNier http://www.wlox.com/story/28901233/...
thanks for the write up Will, glad your ok
I think the biggest 'problem' in this event was recognition. Nobody knew the winds would turn out to be 80mph. I've been out when 'a storm was coming' and you can usually see them coming from a ways off, you'll certainly hear it if there's lightning in it... but I'm usually thinking, is it going to be 20mph...or 30...or maybe 40? But 80?? I never would have thought it would have been blowing THAT hard!
I think that's probably why so many guys were caught up short of taking the sails down, etc, hindsight is always 20-20.
Indeed - a lot of racers might be inclined to approach that storm with a little more
yee-haw!
. I remember a Tybee500 start with a fairly significant storm cell just offshore and to the North. It was cranking on the beach for the start. Mischa and others headed right for the storm cell offshore. I thought they were crazy. I finished about 4 hours behind them that day and re-evaluated my desire to stay away from those storms.
And, BTW, I would never recommend tying yourself to the boat.
(Turn your speakers down, wind noise)
That ended up being an excellent sailing day. I enjoyed it immensely.
That ended up being an excellent sailing day. I enjoyed it immensely.
Funny, I seem to remember that was the leg that turned into a 17.5 hour slogfest because my spinnaker fell apart around Vero IIRC.
Nice pics and summary Will.
By all means ignore me, I have no experience that can be useful to you,suffer in your own ignorance.
And this is why I quit posting on here for so long.
And this is why I quit posting on here for so long.
Now Todd you know the rules if you're going to talk to people without a filter you can't get uppity when they don't like it.
Have a nice day you angry old f@#k 🙂
I'm not sure Todd what your problem is.....but I simply asked for advice, however you gave nothing but sarcasm which was out of place. Maybe if you checked your attitude and reversed your delivery you wouldn't be so angry.
Mine you can inflate manually and can be seen from a reasonable distance in moderate weather when you wave it like a madman...
don't ask me how I know. twice
a) dive boat left me 3 miles offshore
b) used to alert large vessel that felt like it was going to drive over me (while still at 20' deco stop depth. tied it to my cave line and sent it to the surface). Not sure where that boat actually was, but the engine vibration was strong enough to make my chest hurt)
Mine you can inflate manually and can be seen from a reasonable distance in moderate weather when you wave it like a madman...
don't ask me how I know. twice
a) dive boat left me 3 miles offshore
b) used to alert large vessel that felt like it was going to drive over me (while still at 20' deco stop depth. tied it to my cave line and sent it to the surface). Not sure where that boat actually was, but the engine vibration was strong enough to make my chest hurt)
Good lord, man. That was hopefully enough to make you give up diving.
yeah, item b) gave me pause when considering a future in tech diving. It became less
recreation
after that.
Also, floating on your deco line for upwards of 3 hours in what amounts to open ocean reminded me too much of those little ballyhoo bait fish for big beasties that were probably circling me just out of sight...
All for a little shipwreck..? hmmm.
I limit myself now to lobster diving mostly...
Todd,
Armchair quarterbacking and a comparison to the great cesspool of sailing (SA)???
I really don't see much armchair quarterbacking, mostly people trying to think through what to do if faced with similar conditions. While there are probably no easy or one-size-fits-all answers to that, it's much better to think through and share ideas before needing to figure it out on the water. Believe it or not, there are other people here who have been through some pretty hairy ordeals.
As for the SA remark, I really didn't see any personal attacks (aka the hallmark of any SA thread), at least not until you came along...
Mike
Groan.
I wish more people knew Todd in person. Look at it this way Mike, you had a pre-determined idea of who I am prior to us meeting in Rhode Island. Same deal. Todd is much more cuddly in person.
Maybe the SA reference he threw out there pushed a button, but I still think this thread has been remarkably restrained with second-guessing.
I still think we should be able to discuss these things without being bullied. This is one of the few discussions that are literally the difference between life and death.
Mike
I wish more people knew Todd in person. Look at it this way Mike, you had a pre-determined idea of who I am prior to us meeting in Rhode Island. Same deal. Todd is much more cuddly in person.
Karl, I appreciate the sentiment, but if I wanted those people to know me they would, I'm not exactly a wallflower. Maybe if people would think through what they post, before they hit the send button it would save them from some a$$hole like me calling them out for their stupid comments.I'm not angry in the least just tired of the BS that passes for knowledge.
In the future, I'll certainly refrain from correcting the deadly advise often given here. I learned my lessons the hard way and far be it for me to save any of you from those wonderful, possibly deadly experiences yourselves. You're welcome.
I wish more people knew Todd in person. Look at it this way Mike, you had a pre-determined idea of who I am prior to us meeting in Rhode Island. Same deal. Todd is much more cuddly in person.
It's not knowing him in person...it's that he's not that Todd that we know on these forums for some reason. His posts are full of sarcasm and insult and then he blames us for the response he gets. I mean, seriously, there was a much nicer way to communicate that dropping the rig on the water will probably introduce more liability and risk into the situation.
Probably a stupid question but does insurance cover this kind of damage?
(To the boats not the egos.)
(To the boats not the egos.)
I would expect so. We drove in hard into the back of a steep wave in our first tybee 500 and it put enough of the spinnaker under water that it broke the spin pole and ripped the kite irreparably. It wasn't my boat/insurance but a claim ended up with a quick settlement for a new spinnaker and pole. Frankly, I'm rather surprised at how much racing related issues insurance does cover.
I wish more people knew Todd in person. Look at it this way Mike, you had a pre-determined idea of who I am prior to us meeting in Rhode Island. Same deal. Todd is much more cuddly in person.
It's not knowing him in person...it's that he's not that Todd that we know on these forums for some reason. His posts are full of sarcasm and insult and then he blames us for the response he gets. I mean, seriously, there was a much nicer way to communicate that dropping the rig on the water will probably introduce more liability and risk into the situation.
The lack of tone, inflection, and body language makes this medium a bit more difficult than others to communicate. Throw some sensitivity in there, and you can be talking to someone you've never met, and the message gets lost in the static.
Personally, cutting the rig loose would likely not cross my mind as a valid option unless it's already down, because Todd's right. A mast flopping around in the waves, semi connected to the boat is just asking for holes in what little hope you have of not being a swimmer.
Personally, cutting the rig loose would likely not cross my mind as a valid option unless it's already down, because Todd's right. A mast flopping around in the waves, semi connected to the boat is just asking for holes in what little hope you have of not being a swimmer.
I agree on the rig as well. It would not be a good idea to drop it on the water. Besides the significant risk of damage, unless you have a rig specifically designed for it, it will be unlikely you could ever stand it up again unless you get to shore.