Hunkered down

[Parfait's Provider]

Andy,

I have VHF handheld that doesn't like its battery, but I can get around that. I also have transceiver that needs amps. I'll get something running and try to find you on 146.55.

We are likely to bypass a lot of 70 by using 264 and 795.

Say hi to Ron and Cam.

Ken

[jbenagh]

Salem looked pretty good at 1:30. Only 1-2 boats even lost roller furlers. The waves were huge south of Coney island though.

[M. R. Bober]

STARVIEW is fine. It may take me a week to undo all of the protection, but it will be worth the effort. High tide--judged by the debris line on shore--probably 5' or 6' above high high tide.

Up at the house all is well, we never lost power, the basement is dry, the roof is still atop the house. There is a good deal of dead fall in the driveway, but no damage was done.

I hope that everyone is OK. Check-in and let us know.

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Lancaster, (Home of some fortunate sailors.) VA

[John Ring]

Location, Location, Location!

I hid Tantalus so far upriver a codfish would have trouble finding her.

I took these photos about 2 hours apart this afternoon, near the height of the storm. The first is the entrance to Beverly Harbor, about a mile from my mooring. The second is the little creek where I rented a slip for the weekend at the very head of the same harbor. It was money well spent; at the height of the tide/storm, a boat broke free upwind of my vacant mooring and got hung up on the boat immediately downwind of my mooring. The wayward boat spend the rest of the storm with its rudder hung up on my neighbor's mooring pennants, rubbing hulls for hours. Last I checked both were still afloat, and still attached.

After witnessing that horror show in the outer harbor, I drove upriver to check on Tantalus. The water was so calm I just walked up the dock, went below, and made a cup of tea. When it comes to storms it's all about location, location, location!

John

[img]http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x105 ... Irene5.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x105 ... Irene2.jpg[/img]

[Russell]

I havnt been on the board in a long time, where I have spent the summer internet access is insanely slow and only works about 10% of the time, so I cut the CD board out of my daily internet routine and basicly only check email and facebook.

So I rode out Irene on the Potomac, at the mouth near the Chesapeake. All went well, the boat and myself survived, glad to see reports back so far are generally very good from everyone else!

[Dick Kobayashi]

having ridden out Irene at her mooring in Mattapoisett Harbor. Did spend Sunday reading my boat insurance policy for the first time, though.

[Sea Hunt Video]

This morning I spoke with the marina where my new-to-me Cape Dory 25D is located. They had hauled her out early last week at my request.
The marina folks are very nice. They said they drove around the marina and have not noticed any sailboats or powerboats that were knocked down but they have not yet been able to do any further individual boat inspections.

I asked them to check the cabin of my CD 25D because of the torrential rains. They said they would and they understand I am more than 1,500 miles away, but reminded me that they have 160-180 boats to deal with.

I am keeping my fingers crossed. Dick, I too read and re-read my Boat US insurance policy. Not something I had planned on doing while she was in NJ.

To make matters a little more interesting, there is another tropical depression heading west along the "Cape Verde Express" route. While a long ways away, it is projected to be another major hurricane :

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at2.sh ... e#contents

San Diego is looking better and better every day

[Bob Owens]

My boat (stripped of all canvas and anchor) rode out the storm fine in our club mooring field on the west side of City Island, at the far W end of Long Island Sound. We are well protected there from N, NW, and E winds. Several boats broke loose, but only 1 of the 70+ of our club members. We did not get the expected flooding, though there was some dock damage. I do not have reports from the E side of the island. Steady winds at this end of the Sound did not seem to get much out of the 60s. A number of our experienced members hauled out. My own conclusion from this experience is that I do not want to stay in the water when winds over 70 will be sustained for hours. It is hard to imagine even brand new pennants surviving so much force and action.

[moctrams]

At Flag Harbor Marina in Long Beach, MD myself, several volunteers and marina personnel moved many boats to dry land or trailers in the case of small power boats and moved boats near the harbor entrance closer to the protected area of the harbor and doubled up lines and wrapped the sails . What gets me though is the idea of many boaters think the marina operator was doing it for free, after the owners called and asked to be moved and lines doubled. Irene arrived with ferocity and continued until around midnight Saturday morning. The wind blew steady from the east and eventually shifted to the west. When that occurred, the wind took out trees and power lines in the area. Only two sailboats parted their lines and no boats were damaged other than the headsails unrolled on two sailboats. We had no water and no electricity at the harbor, but did manage to get a “hoseâ€

[Dino]

My son and I weathered Irene in Oriental, NC aboard his 1982 CD 28, Trachelle. Since she's his home we decided to tend her during the storm if needed rather than securing her and hoping for the best.

We moved her from her dock Friday evening when the surge was about 4 feet, allowing us to get well up Kershaw Creek to an area that would be well sheltered from most of the early winds. We spent the night there Friday, keeping any eye out and moved her once to reposition after the plow anchor we'd set started to drag a little.

By mid morning on Saturday, it was apparent the surge had crested (we later learned at 9.5ft) and started to recede. Since the normal depth where we'd spent the night was charted at 3 feet we knew we'd need to head back down the creek. We did so in two stages, getting to water each time that wouldn't get too low too fast but where the creek was still narrow enough to provide some shelter. The wind was enough by then we'd substituted the Danforth for the plow.

A few hours later the eye brought over an hour long lull. When the wind shifted more to the west the water started dropping fast and we had to leave Kershaw. Being on the Danforth was double edged - the upside was that it holds great in the mud here, the downside is that it doesn't want to come back up. (AKA my hands hurt, I'm crew, not the Captain).

We moved back down Kershaw into Green, seeing a number of pilotless boats crossing the creek with the wind change. In Green, the wind and chop were impressive due to the direction and long fetch. We traversed it quickly and rounded up into Smith Creek just far enough to see that our Typhoon was weathering OK on it's mooring, then anchored in lower Smith in about 5 feet with the water still receeding fast. We only stayed there a half hour before it was obvious the water was going to drop below normal stage with the very strong West winds.

Not wanting to risk drying out at an unknown eventual low water, we moved out to deeper water under the bridge to the Oriental Harbor Marina area where the transient cruisers normally anchor. There was only one motor yacht there so we had ample room to increase our scope and weather the rest of the storm there.

The area was exposed to the then westerly winds, but well protected by the harbor breakwater from the swells on the Neuse, so it wasn't a bad last half of Irene for Saturday night even though she was really blowing. Trachelle "sailed" back and forth on the Danforth, tracing a flattened figure eight pattern over and over and over during the night but never dragged at all in the heavy mud there.

I forget when it was, but we eventually realized the wind had gone, and we went on deck to see a perfectly clear starry sky and no wind. It was beautiful.

When the sun started to rise a few hours later, we unwrapped the extra line we'd put on the main and roller furling, raised anchor one last time and went out into a then quite Neuse for an hours sail to dry everything out. It was a beautiful.

The only casualty on Trachelle was her flag, only half of it survived Irene.

(20111015 - edited to change references to "Delta" to "Danforth".)

[Neil Gordon]

She's exactly as I left her, stripped of sails, dodger and about everything else that comes off, dock lines doubled, dinghy deflated and stowed and fenders liberally deployed.

My marina did have a whole section of dock break loose, with 20 or more boats, as pilings snapped. The marina staff secured the free floating dock as best they could by leading boat anchors to the breakwater (good that power boaters back into their slips) and elsewhere. No boats were damaged, which is amazing.

A number of boats on moorings in Dorchester and Quincy Bays broke loose and at least one was holed and partially sunk.

[Markst95]

Checked on my Typhoon today, moored in Bullocks Cove, Upper Narragansett Bay. No problems, she handled the storm fine. Lots of trees down, lots of areas with no power but all the boats looked ok except for one sailboat with a torn to shreds furled Genoa. Anyone heard from Bob in Dutch Harbor, Kelle and Walt in Greenwich or Steve at Spicers Noank yet?

[rperrone]

Andy,
you can get a look at the during and after at Pecan Grove.
If you go to PecanGroveMarina.com. At the bottom look at "Gallery"
A lot of pics.

[RIKanaka]

Moku Ahi came out okay. I went out to Dutch early yesterday since we had a late start at work due to the storm; the yard staff there were still moving the docks off the moorings and back to the pier and the launches hadn't been put back in the water so I had to do a binocular inspection of my boat. She was still riding above the boot stripe and everything appeared intact including, unfortunately, the flaking old varnish on the rails. I had hoped that Irene would spare me some future elbow grease there.

Two boats tore loose from their moorings and wound up on the shore of Dutch Island across the harbor, according the the staff. I could see one of them, which had a tattered headsail and main.

[Ron M.]

I had a helix mooring installed in May. I felt for the few bucks more it was worth it. 5 - 30'+ sailboats dragged moorings and ended up on a sandy,(luckily) beach.
3:30pm Sunday wind shifted to ssw and grew stronger, 40-50 with 60+ gusts. That's right up the harbor with 500 yds or more of fetch. Boats were bucking and weaving like crazy - at 5:30 I couldn't stand watching them,(mine included) getting beat to hell any longer and left - I did all I could do Fri., sails and booms below, 2 extra pennents, etc. I have 3/4" yale polybraid with chafe gear in a bridle for pennants - it held up well. One of the extra 3/4" 3 braid pennants parted. My port bow chock was ripped out - not sure why. it could have been worse.
Next time I think I'll haul her or find a more protected spot.