| Ron Hill
describes his fall 1999 trip aboard Apache (#788).
Apache is back home after our fall 6-week cruise. Some of
the strangest weather I've ever encountered. Either the water
was flat with no wind or it was +40 knots. So a trip plan that
calls for sailing "where the wind takes us" wound up
to be a lot of motoring or hiding out in a protected
anchorage. Anyway, it was good to be out on the boat.
We encountered 2 hurricanes, Dennis and Floyd. We hid out from
Dennis in a very protected anchorage with winds of about 30-35
knots in the anchorage with 60+ knots on Chesapeake Bay. We
were fine. For hurricane Floyd things were quite different. We
anchored in a "hurricane hole" called Horn Harbor on
the Great Wicomico River. It had 50' banks and 50'-75' trees
on top of the banks with a very narrow entrance. We were
joined by 4 other boats. We stripped sails, dodger, bimini,
and anything that could to reduce windage, double anchored
with 80' rhodes and got off the boat. The eye of the hurricane
passed the Eastern shore about 100NM east of Horn Harbor. A
lot of rain and a lot of wind (you could hear the trees
cracking). Fortunately the boat was
fine when we returned to it after the storm. People on shore
estimated it blew up to 70-75 knots even in the protected
cove.
Out of all the things that I remembered to do I did forget two
items. I forgot to turn the dorade vents aft (I had screw in
caps from the inside) and also forgot to take down the 8'
Loran whip antenna, which I'm sure must have been bent over at
45 degrees in that kind of wind. A little bit of water in the
port and aft lazarettes, but considering the deluge of rain
(over 1') it wasn't really significant. For those of you with
a 1988 and earlier C34, my anchor roller modification was
superb (Mainsheet May 1995). In these situations it is an
absolute must to be able to double anchor. Might also note
that on each anchor rhode I had 15 lb sentinels to ensure that
if the wind shifted the lazy anchor rhode
couldn't wrap the wing & pull out.
When we arrived back at the boat after the storm, it was still
blowing 29Kts. with higher gusts. I let the dingy on too long
a tether and the wind caught it and flipped it upside down
with the motor still on so I had some other problems to deal
with. Learning point, keep a short tether so the hull of your
C34 will block the wind from the dingy. Better still, remove
the motor ASAP. Also when leaving the dingy, close the fuel
tank vent!
Although the entire region was out of power, businesses,
motels and restaurants closed down, we found out we were
better off back on the boat after the hurricane passed as we
had power, refrigeration, water and food!
Also two hours before Floyd was abeam our location, NOAA
weather channels 1&2 were flooded out and stopped Xmitting,
the cellphone reception turned to crap, and the TV reception
was stinko to 0 - so in this Information Age we had NONE!!
Every sailing trip is different. Hope the spring cruise will
have
nicer, kinder weather and better sailing. Time now to get
ready to haul the boat for the winter -- already going into
withdrawal!
Ron
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