nor'easter pounds us

[Megunticook]

Well, it sure feel like winter all of a sudden. The first nor'easter of the season has hit us with going on 3 solid days of wind and driving rain, tree limbs down, but nothing too heinous. Grabbed a glimpse of the outer harbor in Camden, just where my mooring spot is (pulled boat safely out on Tuesday, she's on the trailer at home), and the house was rockin' there. Even with the marginal protection of Northeast Point, the southern half of the outer harbor takes it on the chin from the northeast.

That's not a CD bouncing around out there, is it? The windows reminded me of a 30 but the transom seems wrong.

There were maybe 4-5 boats left in the outer harbor, most everyone had hauled or scurried into the sanctuary of the inner harbor. That was my plan B.

Hope everyone is safe and those up North are battened down good until springtime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svRIt_l ... e=youtu.be

[David van den Burgh]

Definitely not a CD. You're right: transom is wrong. Could be a Vanguard - or a number of other similar boats. Not the kind of weather I'd want to have my boat weather alone on her mooring. Glad you're out.

[Neil Gordon]

Lots of boats still in the water at Marina Bay in Quincy, all safe in their slips and other than a shredded Genoa, without apparent damage. I did note two sailboats washed up on the Wallaston beach... Quincy Bay takes pretty much the full brunt from the NE.

[pete faga]

Scituate harbor had gusts to 58mph on Wednesday night
My haul date which I made a month ago was for Thursday morning which was hairy but worked out O.K.
Noticed one shredded genoa on a 30 footer not a pretty sight!
I always have a dedicated piece of line that I tie around the head stay to prevent that happening.

[Hutch_north]

Looks like she has a good mooring -- hope so!

[c1josh]

Here are a few pictures I took on Wollaston Beach. The power boat mooring had parted at the chain, but the sailboard didn't show any mooring lines. The one with the blue deck had an anchor line out into the surf that might have been a backup.

[pete faga]

At least the sailboat had a line around his head stay to prevent the genoa from unfurling
Looks like no damage to the boat once it hit the beach

[Jim Walsh]

We clocked 48 mph a mile from my slip. I had doubled my dock lines in anticipation. Glad I did.

[Klem]

If I had to guess, I would say that the boat in the first video is a Bristol 32 but it is kind of hard to tell. I worked in Rockland for many years and got to witness many nor'easters in Rockland, Rockport and Camden. They certainly are impressive.

It definitely came through a bit stronger than predicted here. I was watching the buoy reports for Mass Bay and saw waves of 20' and steady winds in the mid 30 knot range with gusts into the mid 40 knot range. I know that at least 1 power boat ended up against a breakwater in Salem, MA. There were also several jibs that were destroyed.

A storm like this shouldn't provide concerns for dragging a mooring unless it is really undersized or placed in an overly exposed location. However, it can quickly expose improperly done pendants or worn chain. I know that Maine Sail has posted some good info on pendants and I am now convinced that all pendants should be of the Yale style or a hybrid dyneema/nylon setup like the New England Ropes Cyclone Pendant. Even with good chafe gear, 3 strand can really break down over a long storm. The one exception is when the cleats are really on the rail and everything is nicely radiused so that there is no relative movement between the pendant and any part of the boat. We had been using pendants from Yale for a few years and when it came time to replace them this year, I spliced up a piece of double braid nylon which is attached to the bottom chain and cowhitched into a piece of dyneema which has splices on both ends and goes through a fairlead and onto a cleat.

[jbenagh]

Christine C broke her pennants in Salem, MA on Wed/Thu night. Washed up against the Customs pier but had 10 other boats already there to break her fall. Damage was bad, maybe half the replacement value, but mostly cosmetic and seems eminently fixable (and covered by insurance, I think). I'll lose the three weeks of sailing season I hoped to have before haulout. As a close sailor friend said "you shouldn't be too sad, it's a toy and covered by insurance; a lot of people have worse".

The forecasting really let me down. IIRC, on Wed at 9am the NOAA forecast was still for 20kt winds with gusts to 30 with waves of 7-9ft; pretty typical for an October blow and nothing to really worry about. By evening the forecast was 10-14 ft waves. The NOAA MA Bay buoy recorded waves of 20ft that evening and overnight with sustained winds of 30kt and gusts to 40kt. The nearby Beverly airport (KBVY http://w1.weather.gov/obhistory/KBVY.html) recorded winds of 28-30 with gusts to 45 over that night. By the time the forecast sounded scary or even began to degenerate on Tue, it wasn't safe to get out to the boat anymore. Overnight, there were six foot waves in the harbor.

I also thought that in any kind of storm conditions I would get a chance to reduce windage. I did not get that chance this time; I still had the roller jib, main, grill, Lifesling, and horseshoe buoy in their sailing locations.

The pendants appear to have failed where they chafed on the bobstay. I thought I had followed MaineSail's pendant directions to the letter. I mistakenly used ordinary pendants instead of the Cyclone ones since, at the time, they were only available in sizes that were too long for our mooring field (it turns out that information was incorrect and many people were using ones longer than the spec I was given). I did have the two lines lashed together with chafe protection at the chocks. I had chafe protection at the bobstay but did not allow for the 40% stretch of the lines under max stress; I placed the chafe protection centered where the line was centered at no load but I should have allowed for almost 3 extra feet given the distance from the cleats to the bobstay. And that is a really large distance since it straddles the sizes of chandler-supplied chafe protection.

I'll post some pictures later.

Jeff

[jbenagh]

PS [Klem, our posts got submitted at the same time]

My pendants were 5/8in 10', double-braided "Made in USA" from Hamilton Marine. I'm not sure if they chafed on the anchor or the bobstay. They appear to have chafed roughly halfway through then parted dramatically.

If I had been able to secure the boat, I would have removed the windage but would probably not have removed the anchor (CQR 35 on a roller) given a forecast like we had (20-25kt sustained, 30kt gusts, 7-9ft waves on the ocean). Perhaps I should rethink leaving the anchor on.

Jeff

[Klem]

Jeff,

I am sorry to hear about what happened to your boat, it sounds like many more boats were damaged than I was aware of in Salem. We hauled 1.5 weeks ago so I didn't pay as much attention in this one but I was watching the webcam in Salem periodically and boats were definitely bouncing around pretty good. I went through a full tank of gas in my chainsaw after work tonight cleaning up our yard.

Leaving the anchor on is definitely a tough call. I know that on our 30, the mooring pendant can touch the anchor. In normal use, we would have the primary pendant be the one on the opposite side from the anchor roller so that the bobstay was contacted first. Frankly, I think that the bobstay can be a major source of chafe and potentially worse than many anchors. Given the forecast, I would have done exactly as you did and left the anchor on. Maybe this shows complacency due to the excellent forecasting these days.

I wonder whether your boat would have done better with a set of New England Ropes Cyclone Mooring Pendants cow hitched onto the end of your other pendants? Of course, we will never know for sure. Since chafe is based on movement between a line and something else, the Cyclone Mooring Pendant should do quite well as it is incredibly low stretch meaning that the movement would definitely be minimized. There would still be movement of the line rubbing along the bobstay due to pitching. To help deal with this, the key would be keeping everything smooth and the radii large (it used to be common to put a piece of 1" PVC pipe over your bobstay but that has other issues). Going to a dyneema piece on the boat end has made our chafe gear hold up much better which suggests to me that overall chafing will decrease. On a CD30, this piece needs to be 7' long so that the first pendant can never contact the bobstay (our total pendant length is 19' and 22'). While I have not done this, dyneema allows you to go to a much tougher chafe gear that doesn't breath because it won't build up the same amount of heat that nylon will. Of course the ultimate would be a piece of chain shackled to a spliced thimble on your pendant but chain would beat up the boat cosmetically and could potentially cause a dismasting due to shock loading of the bobstay as the links pop around it.

Salem Water Taxi has announced that they will not be renting out pendants after next season. I wonder what the reason for this is? I hope that it is not liability. Unfortunately I think that this means that more boats will be breaking free as people use homemade 3 strand pendants. Our biggest concern is someone else breaking free and taking us with them.

Good luck with getting the boat fixed.

[pete faga]

Jeff
Sorry to hear about your damage
Hope you can repair her back to the pristine shape when you first bought her.
Insurance company's usually will compensate you for your repairs and then some.
Pete

[nessie]

Jeff,
We are so sorry to hear about Christine C as well!
Ted and Lise

[Neil Gordon]

There's another one coming later today. Stay safe!