Heavy weather moved in fast!

H

hack4alivin

Active Member
TECHNICAL Contributor
Apr 18, 2008
2,518
Joppa, Maryland
Boat Info
320 Dancer
Engines
Twin 350 V Drives
Having the weather option installed on my Raymarine C80 paid off yesterday. Sunday was a typical summer day here in Baltimore, hot and humid. We took the boat out to Hart Miller Island in the morning for some swimming, and dropped anchor in a good spot with not too many other boats around. Well that soon changed as the day went on with more and more showing up and my little haven soon got crowded. I left my C80 on, as I use that to select my radio stations and I always check the weather screen. Later in the afternoon I see a cold front coming from the north and pushing some heavy weather in front of it, very heavy rain and lots of lightning strikes. Cold front pushing that much rain also means heavy winds and that was confirmed by speed at which this thing was moving. At this point I decided it was time to go, so we packed up everything and made a run for home. As I was leaving the people in the boat next to me asked “where was I going in such a hurry”? I told them we had some very heavy weather moving in, they asked how long to they have. I told them a half an hour maybe. I don’t think they believed me as the sun was still bright and it did not look like it was going to do anything.

It only takes me about 45 minutes to get from Hart Miller to home, and we no sooner got in and got all the canvas up when it opened up, and poured….. heavy winds too. Well it was raining too hard to leave the boat so we just sat in out in the cabin with the A/C on. At that point the radio was constant chatter of “May Day” calls. The Coast Guard was very busy yesterday afternoon. I could only image what was going on at Hart Miller with all those raft-ups being pushed around by those nasty winds.
 
I have a lot more respect for changing weather after yesterday, than I had prior to that... I have been caught in storms before, but yesterday was unbelievable. I knew it was coming, I could see the clouds approaching. I don't even know what we could have done differently... The storm approached us from the North, and that was way we were headed, so we were determined to sit it out... It could have been worse for us. The highlight of the storm was seeing our friends sail boat approach, after battling the storm in the ocean... The good thing with our boats is we have speed and can, sometime out run a storm... This storm was moving a 45 kts, so there was not way out for us, but at least we were in a somewhat protected spot... Everyone in our group made if back safely... I'm sure we weren't the only ones caught in this storm...
 
The flag on my transom was ripped off by the force of the wind. The burgee poll bent in the front.

what I will never forget was the mother of 4 kids on the VHF when a boat in front of us pulled them out of the swift moving current after they were blown out of their boat. When she was told that all of them were pulled out... that woman was one happy mother.
 
I think the police, USCG, and fire departments on the water did an amazing job jumping on all of the mayday calls. We had 9 calls in the 2 miles between the east river and the LI sound. they had helicopters up in what I thought was crazy conditions looking for the kid that was taking sailing lessons during the storm. The coast guard keeps track of the time a mayday call comes in, they can then guestimate the location of a swimmer based on the known current and time in the water. they then relay that to boats in the water and copters in the sky. Amazing hearing it all go down.
 
rcknecht said:
I don't even know what we could have done differently... The storm approached us from the North, and that was way we were headed, so we were determined to sit it out... It could have been worse for us....
Click to expand...

Rod,
I see only one mistake on our part, which is waiting too long for deploying the second anchor evenly with the first anchor and letting out enough scope before the storm approached. So, if we have done that, then we could be sitting and smoking sigars the whole time since we were in the shelter harbor. Hey, don't forget that CG stations was also only few hundred yards away. I think that the only part that messed things up is that we didn't know the speed of the storm. So, when it switched from 10mph winds to 40mph in a split moment that gave us no time to prepare the second anchor.

Well, I guess the most important lesson is to double check the weather, so you could plan accordingly, providing you have valid forecast. As I recall, none of us herd any severe warnings prior leaving docks. I'm sure that the word would spread out very quickly if anyone had herd anything like that. So, this thing had developed very quickly out of no where.
 
Alex,

Sounds like you all went through quite an adventure out there. Let me throw out a "What If" question and see what you think of how it might have changed in your situation...

When you first saw/learned how fast that storm was moving "What if" you had separated, pulled up the anchors and ridden out the storm?

My thought, on reading the posts was if your boats were rafted together (I couldn't tell for sure from the posts) they might have sustained some damage. Boats of different size and beam react differntly in waves. One might be moving up when the other boat is moving down, or vice versa.

Just a thought on how to handle a situation like yours in the future. I've ridden out storms like you described but was always free from being tethered to the bottom.
 
Gofirstclass said:
Alex,

Sounds like you all went through quite an adventure out there. Let me throw out a "What If" question and see what you think of how it might have changed in your situation...

When you first saw/learned how fast that storm was moving "What if" you had separated, pulled up the anchors and ridden out the storm?

My thought, on reading the posts was if your boats were rafted together (I couldn't tell for sure from the posts) they might have sustained some damage. Boats of different size and beam react differntly in waves. One might be moving up when the other boat is moving down, or vice versa.

Just a thought on how to handle a situation like yours in the future. I've ridden out storms like you described but was always free from being tethered to the bottom.
Click to expand...

Gofirstclass,
Take a look at the post #32 in the thread below, which I think answers most of your questions:

http://clubsearay.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33878&page=4

But, to simplify the answer in regards to be rafted with different boat sizes here's what I think:

Number of times I observe what's going on during the day while we're rafted and as you can imagine there are alsways few idiots on PWCs or smaller boats that pull people on water toys or simply just run within 30'-50' from the raft. As result our raft rocks. There're worst situation when an idiot on a large cruiser, go-fast, or fishing boat zips too close throwing even larger wake at the raft. As a result the raft rocks even more. I raftup with our friends who have sailboat Beneteau 343 very often. Despite that OAL is similar our hulls are very different. So, if we're able to stay safe while bouncing around from the wake of a passing close by idiots I don't see any issues during a t-storm. We're using bow, stern and two spring lines for the raft with the sailboat. We also put extra fenders at different hights (e.g. 3 higher and 2-3 lower) to maximize the "cushion".

Thus, thinking back and comparing how rough the harbor was during those strong winds (I'm referring to our raft with Rod yesterday) I'd say it was a walk in the park compare to how we bounce sometimes from the wake of a passing boat during the day.

Does this make sense?
 
Last edited:
I keep my C80 on all the time I am out, and having that advance warning right on the screen in front of me has saved me from bad situations several times. When I pulled out of Hart Miller yesterday there were many boats rafted up there that had no idea what was coming.
 
We just made it back to the slip when it blew into the marina. Transformers blowing all over the place....Coast Guard responded to 37 distress calls on the Chesapeake. We lost power for about 24 hours.

As for the iphone apps....the weather channel free app has a nice "map" feature that gave me enough advance notice on the severe weather line moving in. The skies were still blue but the radar on the iphone told us we had about ten or fifteen minutes. Fortunately we were close to home so it worked out ok.
 
We had a similar situation on Lake St. Clair on Friday. Unfortunately it ended badly for a boater from Ohio.

I have the Sirius weather module as well on my E120 and kept a close eye on it as we went to our favorite swimming anchorage. As soon as we got there the weather radar indicated a fast approaching storm with many "lightning icons". So we headed back to our marina, a 30 minute trip. Arrived at 1:45 and the storm hit with its fury ten minutes later.

We heard soon after on the news that a boater was struck and killed by lightning at 2 pm off Walpole Island which is a mile from our marina. Enough said about respecting the weather and using whatever tool at hand in order to make safe boating decisions.
 
ziekman@cox.net said:
Could you have let them know?
Click to expand...

As I said in my original post that started this thread, I did let the ones know around me. They just ignored the warning because of the beautiful day it was. I could see first hand on the screen in front of me what was coming at us. I can't make them leave.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,187
Messages
1,428,222
Members
61,099
Latest member
Lorenzo512
Back
Top