The Perfect Storm

Monday – Well, on Sunday we had talked about being a bit dis-appointed that we did not have at least a small storm to weather while on anchor – just to get some experience in that arena. Watch out what you ask for. Early in the afternoon on Sunday we had a storm blow through that caused one of the nine boats on anchor to break from their anchor and float into a boat behind them. Once that storm had cleared, all turned calm (completely calm) for the rest of the afternoon. At 9:30 we hit the bed for a good nights sleep – at least that was the plan.

Around 11:00 the lighting and thunder started in the distance. Gaye was on anchor watch and could not fall asleep as the winds started to pickup. Around 1:00am, Gaye woke me to tell me that the sailboat in front of us had broken anchor and was coming our way. When I looked out our front windows the wind was very very strong and you could see the four sailors from the sailboat out on the deck with flashlights trying to figure out what to do. The lightening was all over and the small cove at Long Point Cove actually had wind pushed waves. Our anchor stayed tight. The sailboat was coming our way, so I hurried out the back of our boat and put out the fenders in case they made it back to us. Thankfully, they un-hooked their anchor and drove the boat over and reset the anchor.

While this was going on, three Trawlers that had rafted (tied together) started to drag anchor into a sailboat next to them. From what we could see (heavy heavy rain), the sailboat was heeled to the side with the trawlers pushing the sailboat toward the rocks. They had their dinghy’s out trying to figure out how to deal with the problem. When you raft multiple boats together, you can only use the anchor from the middle boat. So, now they had 3 trawlers and 1 sailboat on one anchor with very high winds. One of the trawlers started their engine and helped stay on anchor. All the while, we are just watching with our boat doing fine on the anchor.

After that storm past, then another storm came up and brought with it heavy rain (someone at the dock the next day stated 5 inches had come down – don’t know if this is true or not – but it rained like mad). The winds from this storm came out of the East instead of the West like the last storm. The change in wind direction can cause problems for the anchors because they now need to reset in the other direction – which many times causes the anchor to break loose. Sure enough, another one of the sailboats that had broken loose in the afternoon – broke loose again and now floated into the rocks on-shore. At first there were no lights on in the sailboat, so I was about ready to put down the dinghy and go help out (not looking forward to that). But their lights turned on and out came the crew. They tried to move the boat in front of us (not what we had hoped for), but the anchor didn’t hold – so off they went. They ended up traveling to the Blind River Marina – just gave up on the anchor.

Now the other sailboat in front of us was again dragging anchor. They tried multiple times to reset the anchor and finally got a bow anchor and stern anchor set. Now it is 4:30 in the morning and it is light – time to go to bed.

When we got to Blind River Marina, the boats in the marina from the night before had their own stories. A sailboat said the wind was so strong that it heeled their boat over while in their slip. Others said it was very windy and huge amount of rain.

With the nine boats at anchor six of the boats had problems, the good news is that we had one of the boats without problems. The key is preparation – before we went to bed, we had put everything away, the dinghy up on the davits, 10 to 1 chain anchor rode out, etc. Once the storm hits – it is too late.

So anyway, now we have a storm while on anchor story to tell – chalk up another boating experience.