The 2013 hurricane season is already with us and although not many damaging hurricanes have crossed the Florida Keys it is really important to be prepared. We have poled local knowledge and formulated a plan for the boat and for us should one of these storms come our way.
We asked a guy who has been here at Islamorada for 15 years if he stays on his boat during a hurricane and he said he did it once and would never do it again. Others who have not yet experienced one said they would stay on board if they could get far enough into the mangroves. The official opinion here is "DO NOT STAY ON THE BOAT". We have decided that if it is a minor tropical storm we will tie up in a nearby channel and stay with the boat but for a strong tropical storm or hurricane we plan to tuck our little Seawind 24 up a narrow gap in the mangroves about a mile from our present anchorage and leave. We have spoken to a local resort and we can get a room there for cat 1 & 2 hurricanes. Larger storms require that everyone evacuate to the mainland anyway.
The plan is to remove all our valuables, including passports, cameras, computers, electronics, etc. and stow everything else inside. We can then tie up to the surrounding mangroves with all the rope we have and head for our room on land. If it is forecast to be a cat 3 or more we will also drop the mast and lash it to the deck. Hopefully the boat will still be there in one piece when we return.
As far as survival supplies is concerned we are just following the locally recommended list which is basically food and water for 3 days and various other equipment needed if the power and communications are out for an extended period. Being off the grid and independent already, life on the boat has, by its nature, prepared us for surviving without outside help for a while. I hope we do not have to test our preparedness but if we do I will post an update on how well it worked.
While on the subject of weather I thought I would just post a recent pic of a waterspout we saw from the boat.
Next: I met a guy who sailed a Seawind 24 from San Francisco to Tahiti........
We asked a guy who has been here at Islamorada for 15 years if he stays on his boat during a hurricane and he said he did it once and would never do it again. Others who have not yet experienced one said they would stay on board if they could get far enough into the mangroves. The official opinion here is "DO NOT STAY ON THE BOAT". We have decided that if it is a minor tropical storm we will tie up in a nearby channel and stay with the boat but for a strong tropical storm or hurricane we plan to tuck our little Seawind 24 up a narrow gap in the mangroves about a mile from our present anchorage and leave. We have spoken to a local resort and we can get a room there for cat 1 & 2 hurricanes. Larger storms require that everyone evacuate to the mainland anyway.
The plan is to remove all our valuables, including passports, cameras, computers, electronics, etc. and stow everything else inside. We can then tie up to the surrounding mangroves with all the rope we have and head for our room on land. If it is forecast to be a cat 3 or more we will also drop the mast and lash it to the deck. Hopefully the boat will still be there in one piece when we return.
As far as survival supplies is concerned we are just following the locally recommended list which is basically food and water for 3 days and various other equipment needed if the power and communications are out for an extended period. Being off the grid and independent already, life on the boat has, by its nature, prepared us for surviving without outside help for a while. I hope we do not have to test our preparedness but if we do I will post an update on how well it worked.
Next: I met a guy who sailed a Seawind 24 from San Francisco to Tahiti........
Hi there , I'm in Australia....Thanks for your blog ..it's interesting....but what happened to the guy who sailed the SW24 to Tahiti...I'm interested in getting a SW24 for coastal and further and your information plus the Tahiti trip would have been really, really interesting to read....adding incentive to go get one of 'em and do it for myself....
ReplyDeleteHi, I am still writing that one. There was an article in Multihulls Magazine in the 90's about the trip and I met a guy here who went along as a crew member. Should be posting it in a few days.
DeleteOh boy, Oh goody, Yum Yum.... can't wait.....Oh, and thanks for being really quick on the responses. Appreciated.
DeleteAnonymous Pete.
Oh , and by the way...I hope your kedging out two anchors to handle the breezes your expecting....One from each end of the forward cross beam...I've often thought about having a bladder on deck for pumping the sea water into to stop the thing acting like a kite in those breezy places...When finished ...pump it out again ...I thought of a water mattress or one of those air beds would be enough for an experiment....
DeleteTIP:
Keep your hatches closed and the water outside the boat for the best results...
Anonymous Pete.
The plan is to tie up to the mangroves as the channel we have chosen is quite narrow so we can create a spider web effect with our mooring lines and anchors kedged out back and front.
DeleteThat's a better idea than the kedging I referred to... I later realised that the sw24 wouldn't be able to point to windward as the direction of wind changed...Not too good an idea....
DeleteThe weighing down idea was born from the experience of riding out a 80 to 100 MPH breeze on a mono hull 27ft steel can..with stick ...a yacht... Moored forward and aft to submerged river moorings...Those mooring lines were sounding like highly tuned guitar strings in the midst of that blow..They were about an inch and a half in diameter....
My neighbour on his mooring had a tri and it turned into a kite and flopped down on it's top driving the mast so deep into the mud that it had to be dis masted to right it...many attempts were carried out to retrieve the mast...even securing a large boat to it and allowing the rising tide to raise it...All to no avail...it was too deep into the bottom....It was eventually cut off below the level of the muddy bottom by a diver... ...This happened 3 days after a full refurbishment for the Tri...Very sad indeed.
Most other boats survived that blow except for those on the hard...These ended up with trees and sheds imbedded into most of them . The others were blown off their supports....A very interesting ordeal indeed...Hence the idea of weighing a multi hull with water to resist the lifting effect of the vacuum created by the broad deck ad it's angle windward...
Anonymous Pete...
That is a sad story about the trimaran! Our boat has little on the deck for the wind to grab. We have replaced the trampolines with nets which let the air through. The mangroves are also the place of choice for locals because they break the wind effectively and their branches are too thin to do big damage. Our boat will be about 1/2 mile from the nearest building so the chance of building debris flying by is reduced.
DeleteIt seems that your only problems would come from waterborne debris hooking your lines...Highly unlikely on the lee of an island...You should be able to rest easy having done all that you can...Good luck.
DeleteAnonymous Pete.