Gales of November

[andy k]

Doesn't look so bad... Try being the middle of the Atlantic in a hurricane... I was on a merchant ship taking waves on the bridge at 120' in the air, and doing 40 degree roles... Luckily I was young and stupid and thought it was fun... I have taken 20' waves in my sundancer, in a storm coming in and going out an inlet... You have to watch to make sure you don't let those waves hit you broadside...

20' waves????

20' waves at an inlet sounds like what this nordhavn struggled with:
https://mvdirona.com/2014/09/69-1-degrees/

 

[carterchapman]

Doesn't look so bad... Try being the middle of the Atlantic in a hurricane... I was on a merchant ship taking waves on the bridge at 120' in the air, and doing 40 degree roles... Luckily I was young and stupid and thought it was fun... I have taken 20' waves in my sundancer, in a storm coming in and going out an inlet... You have to watch to make sure you don't let those waves hit you broadside...

Rod - great story! How are you doing? Long time - no see!!!

 

[my3sons]

For those wondering what we're talking about, this is a pretty good explanation. (except it's pronounced "saysh", at least that's what I've always heard.

https://weather.com/storms/severe/news/2020-11-16-lake-erie-seiche-flooding-buffalo

Couple of photos from today. They had a lot of it cleaned up, they must have been busy yesterday. Our marina is part of a state park so they have several pieces of heavy equipment at their disposal.

The second dock out is our main dock, floating, anchor secured, 8' width. Now broken in half. All the 44' finger docks that were on the inside of it (closest to camera) are gone. Including mine. A few of the fingers on the outside made it through.
The closest floating dock is missing most of the fingers that were on the inside. These are 40' fingers. That's two of them upside down laying on the bank

Below: The debris line in the foreground is where the water was Sunday afternoon/evening courtesy of Toledo and a SW gale. The break wall above the hood of my truck is the attenuator wall that protects the opening to the marina from the chop on the outer harbor. The break wall you see way out on the horizon of this picture is the Buffalo Outer Harbor Wall. It is a little over a half mile from the shore to that wall. We are at about the mid point of that wall which is 3 miles long. Yes, this is all inside the "protection" of what is called the Buffalo Outer Harbor. Photo is looking SW, right up the lake and into the prevailing southwesterlies.

Now looking the other way, check out the size of those rocks and concrete rip rap that were tossed up from the shore protection onto the lawn by the waves that had already been knocked down by the break wall 3000' away! Some of those chunks weigh over 100 pounds.

As I drove around the area, I later found the fingers from our dock! They must have fished them out yesterday. N 005...That's me Fingers looked pretty good, looks like one of my dock neighbors lost a float, they have extras.

I'm glad we don't have the Gales of November in July, or we could add a whole bunch of crunched fiberglass to these pictures

 

[Steve S]

For those wondering what we're talking about, this is a pretty good explanation. (except it's pronounced "saysh", at least that's what I've always heard.

https://weather.com/storms/severe/news/2020-11-16-lake-erie-seiche-flooding-buffalo

Couple of photos from today. They had a lot of it cleaned up, they must have been busy yesterday. Our marina is part of a state park so they have several pieces of heavy equipment at their disposal.

The second dock out is our main dock, floating, anchor secured, 8' width. Now broken in half. All the 44' finger docks that were on the inside of it (closest to camera) are gone. Including mine. A few of the fingers on the outside made it through.
The closest floating dock is missing most of the fingers that were on the inside. These are 40' fingers. That's two of them upside down laying on the bank
View attachment 95025

Below: The debris line in the foreground is where the water was Sunday afternoon/evening courtesy of Toledo and a SW gale. The break wall above the hood of my truck is the attenuator wall that protects the opening to the marina from the chop on the outer harbor. The break wall you see way out on the horizon of this picture is the Buffalo Outer Harbor Wall. It is a little over a half mile from the shore to that wall. We are at about the mid point of that wall which is 3 miles long. Yes, this is all inside the "protection" of what is called the Buffalo Outer Harbor. Photo is looking SW, right up the lake and into the prevailing southwesterlies.
View attachment 95026



Now looking the other way, check out the size of those rocks and concrete rip rap that were tossed up from the shore protection onto the lawn by the waves that had already been knocked down by the break wall 3000' away! Some of those chunks weigh over 100 pounds.
View attachment 95027

As I drove around the area, I later found the fingers from our dock! They must have fished them out yesterday. N 005...That's me Fingers looked pretty good, looks like one of my dock neighbors lost a float, they have extras.
View attachment 95028

I'm glad we don't have the Gales of November in July, or we could add a whole bunch of crunched fiberglass to these pictures

Supposed to look like this?

 

[Nater Potater]

That sort of thing does tend to freak me out just a bit. In our neck of the woods, we had a winter blast come down out of Canada on September 7th, knocking down a BUNCH of trees around Pend Oreille lake.
Here's the root ball of two side-by-side red firs:


Another red fir snapped. What's not obvious is that this trunk is about 3 feet in diameter.

There's around 250 big trees on the ground. One of the locals describes the sound of the trees snapping like gunshots in the woods, then a final large gust laid whole fields of trees to the ground.

 

[my3sons]

Supposed to look like this?

View attachment 95044

Yep, except 2years ago they added a second attenuator wall to help block waves from coming in the entrance gap. Because this isn't the first time for damage.

 

[rcknecht]

Rod - great story! How are you doing? Long time - no see!!!

Carter, We are doing great... Love teleworking... As you know, we all spend our free time fixing and cleaning the boat, or thinking about it. I assume you aren't flying much any more...

 

[carterchapman]

Carter, We are doing great... Love teleworking... As you know, we all spend our free time fixing and cleaning the boat, or thinking about it. I assume you aren't flying much any more...

We started buying airplanes again in Sept, so I was really busy in Oct with 14. Just one for the end of this month...