The worst weather I've boated in was....

OK, we all like to see photos of beautiful sunsets reflected on the calm waters. Those are great, but some times we get out there and the weather catches us by surprise. That's what this thread is about. Whether you were out there on purpose (you knew about the weather ahead of time) or by accident when the winds and waves were much worse than predicted.

Let's hear about your experience(s), what happened, and how you managed through it to be around today. What waters were you on, what port had you left and where were you headed. Let's hear 'em.

Oh, pics and videos are appreciated.

Mine is going to be totally wimpy but when we first moved from boating on the lake to boating on the river we over stayed what should have been prudent but we stayed in the water after Thanksgiving. Well reality set in and all of a sudden the following weekend was going to be into the lower 20’s so we knew the boat had to come out so we took truck and trailer over to the boat ramp jumped into our car and headed over to our dock which was 5 miles away. As soon as we got to the boat the heavens opened up and we were pelted with rain and sleet. We did not want to put the canvas up so we jumped in and soon as the temp in the engine would let me we were flying down the river at 59 mph. By the time we got to the boat ramp we were soaked and cold soaked. We got the boat loaded and over to the marina so we could drop the outdrive into the 55 Gal drum of pink stuff. We still laugh about that trip to this day.

Around 20 miles offshore in a new 1986 300 Weekender. Unforecasted fast moving front moved across all of Lake Michigan from the Straits down to Indiana. We diverted into Manistee, but endured 65 MPH winds, huge seas, torrential rain and lighting strikes all around us for more than two hours. USCG turned the range lights on for us so we could see the harbor entrance. The storm destroyed much of the cherry crop in NW lower Michigan and knocked down lots of sailboats in a regatta off of Chicago. My two sons made the trip with me. The youngest was about 6 years old. Both were troopers. An unforgettable experience.

Well mine is pretty wimpy too. 2 stories actually. We have only been boating 4 years so there were only 2 that were bad days that we could think of. One was a Sunday afternoon we were anchored on the Ohio River. The forecast said it was supposed to start storming about 6:00PM or so. So around 3:30 the sky off in the distance looked pretty nasty (we were anchored less than 1 mile from our slip). Wife checked Facebook and people were talking about how bad it was. The winds picked up pretty good and we headed back. We probably had 2' waves which is huge for our area. We made it back to the dock and got the cover on before the rain hit. That was the first time docking in high winds. The skies opened up as we were headed to the parking lot. The other funny part was that my daughter had a 2016 Wrangler with leather interior (this was either 2016 or 2017 when this happened). We drove it that day and had all 4 doors off. We were soaked by the time we got home.

The other time was this past September when we pulled the boat due to flood warnings. We had an assembly line pulling boats that day. I drove the boat over to the ramp and it was barely raining but we pulled it to the upper lot and as we were putting the cover on it started pouring. We didn't boat in bad weather that day but were drenched wrapping things up.

For me the worst weather is most often relative to the size of the boat. That means I've got at least 4 stories...that's too much typing.

Woody said:

...That means I've got at least 4 stories...that's too much typing.

Click to expand...

Fortunately for me, I can recycle my story, so here's a cut-and-paste:

We were cruising the North Channel of Lake Huron. We split with friends at Killarney. They were going to anchor, we were cruising to Mackinac Island with a stop-over night at Gore Bay. The weather in Killarney was perfect. Not a lick of wind, not a cloud in the sky. We said good-bye to our friends and without checking the MAFOR, headed west. I started regretting my lack of planning in the Clapperton Channel. I was taking big waves directly on the bow, each bigger than the next. By the time I realized that I shouldn't be there, I didn't want to try to turn around. I tuned to the WX, and the Canadian forecast for the open waters in the bay was 2-3 meter waves, increasing. I was watching my sounder show single-digits while the bow was smashing into 6 footers, so I was concerned that even if I did manage a 180, that surfing in a trough could get my stern low enough to touch bottom.

Keep in mind that these are Great Lakes waves: brutal frequency

I would apply full throttle on the face, then pull back at the crest and we'd plunge into the troughs, stuffing the bow with both props ventilating in the air. Water was pouring through the zippers, drenching us and everything around us. Then the bow would re-float and we'd start the cycle again. The companion hatch was open, but I couldn't convince anyone to let go of grab handles long enough to reach over and slide it shut. Water was pouring into the cabin.

After about an hour, my elbow and shoulder were starting to go out, so I was operating the throttles by reaching over with my left hand.

When we finally reached Gore Bay, the waters were protected. I hailed the harbormaster for a dock assignment before his facility was even in sight. You gotta love Canadian dockmasters. He said, "don't try to take a finger dock. I'll be waiting up-wind of you on the end of my T-pier. Point your anchor at my chest, throw me a line and we'll get you settled without issue." We did as we were told and we were safely tied to the outside of his T minutes later. That was a decade ago. I remember that conversation like it was yesterday.

We didn't even hook up power for more than an hour. We made drinks and just sat there in the soaking wet cockpit and stared.

The carnage below was depressing. Mirrors smashed in the fwd head, hinges and latches broke on cabinets. A TV mount had given way and the TV was smashed, so was a stereo unit. The carpet was soaking wet 6 feet fwd of the companionway steps. The toaster had busted loose from its galley cabinet and was gone. We literally followed bread crumbs to where it was hiding near the pillows of the aft cabin bed.

The next day we proceeded to Mackinac in calm seas. Once we got home, we heard of a story of a rental trawler out of Gore Bay that had set bow and stern anchors in strong winds in the Clapperton the week after I had gone through. They flipped over and sunk.

Crazy, these lakes.

A continuation of that story: About halfway through the open water area, I saw two boats off my starboard bow with roughly the same heading. The 42 express was clearly following the bigger motoryacht, so I moved in behind them both in third position to take shelter in their wake. They weren't making wake though. Their course was differently enough from mine that they couldn't stay on-plane. We were rolling as much as we had been pitching, so I broke away and resumed my course to Gore Bay.

They ended up following us. As soon as we had tied up, the dockmaster ran to help lash them to his fuel dock.

After finally addressing some of the carnage below, getting the boat hooked up and making second (ok, third) cocktail, I went over to the fuel pier to discuss our "fish story" with the other boats. I introduced myself to the skipper of the motoryacht. He said, "yeah - it looked like YOU were taking a beating out there." Before I could reply with "I thought YOU were going to capsize...", his wife pushed him aside, pointed in my face and yelled "we LOVE you! We were lost, we didn't know there was town here - we'd have been out there for six more hours if we hadn't followed you in!"

The "skipper" went inside and slammed the door while the wives and I bonded while they described their carnage and terror. lol

Years later, someone here posted a pic with of a full-size Ski-Doo jet boat sitting on the platform of a 540MY. That guy.

I boat in Chattanooga, TN on the TN river which in most areas is flanked by a mountain range on both sides. During the summer months there's always a possibility of a pop up thunderstorm and they usually track along one of the mountains and then dissipate without dropping into the valley so they can easily be dodged while out on the water.

Well 2 times in the last 2 years I've been caught out in one of these pop up storms..... high winds, heavy rains, lighting everywhere.

2 years ago .... I lifted anchor and tried to hug the shore line for some cover so I was not the tallest object around. Had to keep it in drive just to maintain position and tried to weather vane with the changing winds w/o ending up grounded. Saw a number of trees get struck by lighting in the cove I sheltered in. What a sight seeing a tree light up all they way to the ground. Lasted about 20 minutes but it seemed like for ever.

Last year got caught under another wicked storm and since I was already in a cove for a few hours thinking highly of my anchor skills decided to ride it out. My guest got concerned and went into the cabin and I joined shortly there after when the rain was just too much. When the wind started to howl I was like WTF is right over us..... an after about 10 minutes when everything died down I popped my head out of the cabin to find that the boat had dragged anchor clear across the cove to the other side....... luckily caught something right before the shallows.

Getting "caught" in a severe thunderstorm line fishing in a 26' Shamrock 30 miles off Cape Hatteras. Weather went from beautiful blue skies to that greenish black when things get really bad. Seas went from nice 3 ft rollers to standing 8' in about 10 minutes with torrential rain and lightning seemingly 10' from us. We donned life jackets, pointed the nose into the wave and rode it out for about 20 minutes. Then went back to fishing and the blue skies returned.

Worst weather? or worst seas?

Over the years we have had the opportunity to define what our comfort tolerances are for a rough day. That means we have surpassed our desired "roughness" threshold a couple of times.

Like everyone we watch weather pretty close and avoid those days when we anticipate things not being nice.

Couple that come to mind:

Coming back from the Keys one time, plan is to run Hawks channel back to the east coast. Left a day early since it was going to get "bad" the next day. Wasn't too bad, just very rough along Hawks Channel, then we when we turned the corner which opened up to the Atlantic, it was bad. Slugged it out the 20-30 miles till we could turn into Miami.

Then there was a trip from Charleston, SC to Cape Fear. We ran straight across, expected some wind, but felt it was still in our level of comfort. Somewhere along the trip about halfway the winds started changing direction and got fierce. Sun was shining, but we had spray coming over the hard top on the fly bridge (23 ft.). No place to go, 30 NM or so off shore, middle of the crossing. Was rough, miserable but we plugged on.

(note, later that year I went to a class on interpreting weather charts and understanding isobars and all that weatherman stuff)

We have had a few experiences like that. Never in a situation where we felt we were in danger. But stretches where you could not stand up and walk anywhere.

But the absolute roughest water - Albemarle Sound. We crossed with a west wind. We were rolling that day. I was able to find a speed in the chop to help a bit, but it was hard rolls.

We were rafted up and anchored with 2 other boats one evening on the lake when a Derecho rolled in. Fortunately we were well anchored with our bows to the storm. We drug back probably 30' feet or so, but held. Although we didn't sustain any damage, the marina suffered quite a bit and lost power as did all the nearest towns. This was the beginning of our 4th of July vacation week, so ice became an issue... got to keep them drinks cold!

For me on an inland lake in the south afternoon thunderstorms are the biggest threat. I generally try to avoid them, when the storm forecast is high I stick close to the marina and just get off the lake early. Eventually you get caught in one though and once the storm is bearing down it is pointless to try and run for home you will end up stuck in it or get caught up in the maylay at the marina with everyone else that tried to outrun it. A couple of times I have gotten caught - if I can't get anywhere I put the bowcover on and hunker down, if I can I will pull into an empty boat slip at someones dock or under a bridge. The good thing about afternoon thunderstorms is no matter how ferocious, they are usually over pretty quick.

August of 2014, as we have done the last couple of years, decided to take my Mother-In-Law to Bayfield WI for a birthday lunch/cruise. We are about 30 miles by sea, heading East and then South between the Apostle Islands on the S. Shore of WI /Lake Superior.

We listened to NOAA that morning and there was a small craft advisory because of an approaching storm from the NW. We sat on the beach and actually saw a depression to the west of us, however it was headed south. It was a beautiful morning & was approaching noon, so we went to the marina. Talking with the marinas owner, we both agreed that this might pass, although I knew the decision was mine to make. (edit "I")We decided to go.

It was a great trip to Bayfield, which usually takes about an hour. We arrived at the city dock, then went to Maggies for a cocktail and lunch. After lunch, once we were outside, we were greeted by rain. It was calm outside, no wind, no lightning, so I decided maybe we should shove off and take our time. I have a camper topper that I can set up 3/4 to keep everyone dry.

Heading north, before turning west to head back to the Port of Cornucopia in Siskiwit Bay where we rent a slip, it was calm with a little drizzle with an occasional 2'-3'. Things were looking good until I rounded Raspberry Point headed toward Port Detour (irony in that name) which started to position me west.

"Confused Seas" started picking up with constant 2' to 4', however I was doing okay, taking my time. The rain had stopped. There was even sunbeams breaking the clouds to the west so I proceeded. About 10 minutes later, the waves really picked up to a solid 4' and then an occasional WAMMY, burying my nose in the trough. So I started tacking toward York Island, then to shore, then to Sand Island continuing this zig-zag west.

When I approached Sand Island, the Sand Island Cut, which is a shallow 2 mile path between the mainland & Sand Island , has a depth in some parts of 6'. This is were things started getting harry. I made sure everyone was wearing their life vests. My daughter, wife & mother-in-law where sitting one the deck & not in the seats. Looking behind me, the waves had gotten taller than the top of my camper topper. My daughter, being 10 at the time, thought it was fun.....far from it. I never bottomed out, which scared the hell out of me going through that cut.

Getting past Sand Island, I have one final smaller Island I can tack towards, Eagle Island, then to Siskiwit Bay . At this time, almost every wave is breaking over my bow, the frequency is fast, and as I mentioned the seas are confused. As I continue my approach toward Eagle, my Father-in-law states; "You have to turn this around toward Siskiwit Bay you know?" I know this, however I was scared to death trying to time things because now, my best guess, we're hitting occasional 8' confused seas. I've never been in anything close to this.

I timed the troughs, checked my tabs and made the turn. It worked out!! I am now headed toward the bay. Even though the seas were confused, the pattern was on my side which helped push me in. I was able to 1/4 (now I know what that feels like) some of the waves in. We made it!! When we entered the marina, the owner ran to my dock to grab a line saying that she couldn't believe I was out in that.

The reason I never turned around and went back to Bayfield was because I seemed to be past the point of no return. Seas were building all over the lake. What should have been an hour trip turned out to be 4 hours.

I had to pry my fingers off of the helm and throttle. I kissed my family and kissed the SaraBelle. I must admit, she didn't hiccup once and saved our asses.

Lessoned learned. Anytime there's a small craft advisory, I don't care if the water is glass, I will either keep her in the Marina or only stay out in the bay where I can get back promptly.


I have to get back to work.

Ollie

If you boat on the Gulf Coast, you learn to pay attention to the weather forecasts. A typical forecast reads like this: "Mostly clear, winds S to SW, 15-20; seas, 2-3 ft; 7-8 sec period; occasional afternoon thunderstorms." All in all, a good boating forcast......except those afternoon thunderstors can be horrible if the winds gust to 40+ and seas at the thunderstorm grow quickly to 10-14ft. You either run for it or hang on and wait it out. When off shore, I keep the radar on 12-16 mile range and watch for the thunder heads forming. Around here the air is so laden with moisture in the summer, a high energy thunder storm can grow dramatically. I set range and bearing lines marking the location and size of the storm clouds on the radar. If the storm appears to be staying about the same intensity and is moving parallel ot away from us, I usually just wait it out. If it is growing in size and its path appears to be headed between the boat and the nearest protected water based on the range and bearing lines I set, then we get moving and head to protected water. More than once we have been caught and had to ride out horrible squalls. My wife is quiet and soft spoken but has a sharp wit and after things quieten down, she usually comments "Hey Quint, we need a bigger boat!


And then there was the time we were sick of winter and headed to Pensacola on the first pretty weekend. Cool, old Southern city with a huge Spanish influence in the architecture in the old part of town, great restaurants, and shops etc. all within walking distance of the Palafox Marina. We ran over on Thursday in early March, enjoyed a beautiful Friday and Saturday, without a cloud in the sky then woke up Sunday Morning, going home day, to overcast skys and scattered fog. We could see about 2 miles based on the bouys marking the Pensacola channel entrance, so I loaded the routes for Panama City and Destin sea bouys in the plotter and headed out. Just as we got to the Pensacola sea bouy and turned East to pick up our route, I coupled the autopilot to the route in the plotter and then we ran into fog so thick I could barely see the anchor on the front of the boat. The NW Gulf has periods of sea fog in the late fall to early spring. The fog blows around and will occasionally, but not always burn off and lift a bit. This turned out not to be one of those days and we were socked in for 12 hours only being able to see 50-75 ft in front of the boat. I am Ok flying a plane in the clouds on instruments, but this turned into one really exhausting day since the only location reference was electronic and there was no traffic separation by FAA controllers. I had 2 Furuno plotters + B&G GPS, so we knew where we were and had redundancy and we have a 64 mile Furunop radar. The biggest challenge was keeping watch for other boats in the area which happens to be one of the most popular fishing areas in NW Fla. We also ran 5 miles + offshore since this is Cobia season where fishermen sight cast for them along the beach. As we reached the Panama City sea bouy and turned to 52˚ and switched routes on the plotter, to head in the channel, the fog lifted.

So let me ask you.......A lot of us have boats equipped with all sorts of electronics, but can you use all the features available to you? Take time to learn how to load and manipulate your routing features and be sure your autopilot is completely interfaced to the position fixing devices. This was one real long day, but it would have been almost unbearable if I had to steer for 12 hours in fog.

OK, I'll stick a couple in here. The first one happened in 2013. We had taking my MIL out for a nice afternoon cruise and had brought lunch. We went to a very sheltered bay that's just a few miles upstream from our marina. WX forecast was for light winds, 5-10, with possibility of a rain storm late in the afternoon.

The bay we anchored in is only a couple hundred yards across and when we got there the wind was blowing from the north. I dropped anchor in the mud bottom about 20 yards from the north shore.

As we ate we could see the storm approaching from the south. It looked like it would pass by us a few miles south of the bay, so no problem. While we were eating the wind suddenly shifted to blowing out of the south and picked up in intensity. That was blowing us toward the north side of the bay so I fired up the engines and pulled the anchor.

The bay is only about 1/4 mile long and as I was pulling out of it I could see a boat on plane heading toward the bay and it was about a mile away.

I flipped on the radar and was waiting for it to time in before we left the bay. It timed in so I turned it to "Transmit" and headed out. The boat heading our direction had disappeared so I figured it had gone on the other side of a nearby island. I couldn't see it or see it on the radar. The rain hit with a fury at that point; dropping our visibility to about 100 yards.

I started out of the no wake zone, staying close to the south shore of the river to stay in the lee of the trees on the bank. About 1/4 mile from the bay we got hit with a blast of wind that made the boat heel over about 40 degrees, and then the wind really hit.

When that blast of wind hit it ripped the fabric/zipper on the upper bimini and it was flopping in the wind. I couldn't leave the helm to secure it so it just had to flop.

As we cruised along the south side of the river, about 25 yards off shore, a lightening bolt struck either a tree on shore or the boat because when it did the radar flashed a bright screen then it and the plotter died.

In normal conditions it would take us about 45 minutes at slow cruise to get back to our marina. The visibility was so bad due to the heavy rain that I kept the speed down to idle and it took us about an hour and a quarter to get back there.

Normally I'd have been really ticked about losing the electronics but my insurance picked up the cost of that and replacing the bimini.

Here's the storm clouds. At this point the storm was southeast of us a few miles.

When storm hit us I didn't have time to use camera but here are a couple of shots of the bimini damage




A good time was not had by all. GW and her mother were just a bit shaken up by the lightening strike.

The other one I've already posted videos of but I'll post them again for new members to see.

We were headed to Umatilla, OR for their annual "Umatilla Days Festival". It's about 3 hours including passing through McNary Lock. 'Nuff said, here's the videos.....




In the last one the wave that put green water on the front windows knocked me off my feet and also knocked off my anchor light which sits about 20' off the water. It also forced open the forward hatch and soaked all the bedding on the master bed, soaked carpets, etc. and scared the bejesus out of my Admiral.

We ended up turning around and heading back home so we could get the bedding dried out. We went back down the next day on waters that were flat calm.

So that's 2 bad weather encounters with the MIL aboard - just saying.

BillK2632 said:

So that's 2 bad weather encounters with the MIL aboard - just saying.

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I was thinking the same thing!

Worst for me was this past October. Returning from a long weekend trip up the Hudson River, came down through NY harbor and things got bad once we cleared the Verrazano Bridge and got worse once we headed east. Conditions were worse than forecast and it was a scary ride to the closest inlet.

Gofirstclass said:

The other one I've already posted videos of but I'll post them again for new members to see.

We were headed to Umatilla, OR for their annual "Umatilla Days Festival". It's about 3 hours including passing through McNary Lock. 'Nuff said, here's the videos.....

In the last one the wave that put green water on the front windows knocked me off my feet and also knocked off my anchor light which sits about 20' off the water. It also forced open the forward hatch and soaked all the bedding on the master bed, soaked carpets, etc. and scared the bejesus out of my Admiral.

We ended up turning around and heading back home so we could get the bedding dried out. We went back down the next day on waters that were flat calm.

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YIKES!