Storm Stories

BonBini

BonBini

New Member
Sep 28, 2009
685
Great Lakes
Boat Info
88 268
Engines
7.4L Alpha One
Hello to everyone. I am a new boater and new to CRS.

I’d like to hear some storm stores you’ve made it through. How you navigated the seas, what you did right/wrong and how you’re boat held up.

For me my boating experience is very minimal. We ran less than one tank of gas through our reciently sold 230cc and less than 1 hour experience in our recently purchased 268we.

Sept 2nd this year: I decided to make a 7 mile trip across East Grand Traverse Bay Lake Michigan to Old Mission Bay just before night fall. Waves looked to be 2-4’ as we cleared the break wall of Elk Rapids. As we passed the last channel marker they seemed to be mostly 4’. I learned right away to steer sideways into them at a slow speed with some power to keep the roll to a minimum. Half way across the waves got to be way more than 4’. I had to steer straight into them to keep the boat from rolling really bad. Deb and I barely spoke on the way over. It was all I could do just concentrating on steering the boat. The safety of Old Mission Bay never felt so good. As soon as we set anchors, we popped two beers and said were never doing that again.

I think the only thing I did right was:
Told Harbor Master our intentions.
Steering the boat.
Left the blowers on.

What I did wrong was:
Made the trip to begin with.
Didn’t have life jackets on or even readily available.
Didn’t have radio turned on till I was really concerned.

How the boat held was:
Took on a little water to cabin via anchor locker.
Picked up a rattle in dash I haven’t found yet.

We now know our boat can handle much more than we care to. ...Ron
 
So you have at most 10 hours of boating and ran through more than 4 footers in a great lake? Eeek!

Glad to see you made it and decided not to try it again for awhile! Just a comment, if you have a radio you are legally required to monitor vhf 16 while you are on the boat.
 
mvoellinger said:
So you have at most 10 hours of boating and ran through more than 4 footers in a great lake? Eeek!

Glad to see you made it and decided not to try it again for awhile! Just a comment, if you have a radio you are legally required to monitor vhf 16 while you are on the boat.
Click to expand...


Are you saying that you have to keep the radio on Channel 16? What is the point of hte rest of hte channels then?
 
Zorba said:
Are you saying that you have to keep the radio on Channel 16? What is the point of hte rest of hte channels then?
Click to expand...

mvoellinger said:
If you are not using the radio for communicating etc, you are supposed to be monitoring channel 16.
Click to expand...

Yes this is correct, you are required to monitor 16. Most radios have a DW(dual watch) button to monitor 16 if you're also leaving it on a working channel to talk to friends/marinas etc. For instance select a working channel with your friends (ie: 68 or 69) then press DW.
If you're in a conversation with your firends take DW off so you don't interupt your conversation, but when done set the DW back on to always be monitoring 16 for emergencies or other info.

BonBini,
It's good you made it through, but you need to make sure you know your conditions you set out into. I've been there, done that too, but I won't go there again. It just isn't fun and too much can go wrong. Welcome to CSR.


CRS is whole other club.
 
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mvoellinger said:
So you have at most 10 hours of boating and ran through more than 4 footers in a great lake? Eeek!

Glad to see you made it and decided not to try it again for awhile! Just a comment, if you have a radio you are legally required to monitor vhf 16 while you are on the boat.
Click to expand...

10 hours of boating pretty much sums it up. Since then I've probably doubled that. Having hundreds of hours wrenching on other peoples boats, now at fifty something I'm hopeing to reverse that ratio:smt038. My vhf goes straight to ch16 when I turn it on!
 
I'm a member! (I think).

Took Dad out 26 miles on a last, great fishing trip on the 250. Found a weed line. Trolled and caught some Mahi2. Out of nowhere, a gust front came up. We trolled in following seas at about 6 knots for about 3 hours at which point I hooked and boated a 6 foot, 8 inch (tip to tip) sailfish.

As we continued in, seas changed from following to quartering to front quartering. It got really uncomfortable for my Dad. Lesson: If you get into big seas, slow down and troll.

2nd: Wife and I went out about 15 miles on same 250. It was eerily calm in the Gulf. We fished at a new spot in about 90' that had sand bubbling up at the surface. That took a long time to figure out - soooo much water movement down deep that the sand was billowing up from the side of an obstruction (new fishing spot found visually from sand on surface).

It was kind of calm fishing, but there were huge swells starting to develop. As we started home, we were able to surf the 250 on the face of the swells. Normal 25 mph power settings were netting us 40 mph. The diagonal track took us to the barrier island, maybe 4 miles from the pass. We had to negotiate these things sideways until we got to the pass. We actually had to climb back up hill away from the beach to avoid getting thrown by breaking waves, and to give ourselves more safety margin.

When we made it to the pass, we had to time it and go like hell on the face of a wave. People watching the surf on the jetties looked at us like we were nuts! Inside, we could see the waves rolling and breaking on the other side of the island!

Lessons Learned: When surfing in a 25' cruiser, be sure to point at the pass. When a storm named Wilma is destroying a place called Cancun, consider a little bay fishing for a few days.
 
BonBini said:
So John; what happen to the sailfish?
Click to expand...

Regrettably, we ate it, but not before getting some great pics of my Dad and I, and the victom. When we caught it, we kept it by the boat while I dug through all of my fishing booklets to find out what to do with it. I tried calling fishing buddies to find out what to do - eat or release.

The fish looked pretty bad after a gruelling fight. We should have released it, we now know. We didn't know then. Cooks and tastes like swordfish. Several huge steaks from the tail and fillets from the sides. I still regret not knowing.
 
John: Sounds like you got a few good meals outa that fish anyways. I re read your storm story within Turtles ref to his. I now understand why it is said you want to be a little under proped down where your at. The ocean is a place where you may have to drive your boat up hill. My old 230 ended up down in Key Largo. Sold it to a friend. It was under proped with a 15x15 ss. Turned 5000 rpms and halled as. Thanx ... Ron
 
TurtleTone: That sounds like a Hell of a ride. That 280 is one sound ship. Having two engines must have been a little conforting too. I really like the first aid kit idea. All of our safety stuff was just stowed wrong. The whole visibility issue has got me thinking. Hope to see your sig updated soon with that 4 fity. I cut teeth on Cat's 3116 protos and still repair them today. They are one tough platform for the 3126 and C-7 and they love to work not idle. ...Ron
 
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We've had three events this year, so far.....

In april, we planned a trip to Ocracoke for a few days. The boat was at the dealer when the time to leave came so I told them they'd have to finish when I got back. Forecast was for scattered t-storms and 15-20knot west winds with gusts to 25. No big deal, thats a typical forecast around here. The first half of the trip to Beaufort/MH City was great, a little windy but not too bad, just as forecasted. We left Beaufort for Ocracoke at about 9am, about 60-70 nm run IIRC. Going through the ICW and Adams Creek, I was noticing the wind was blowing really stiff and storms could be seen on the horizon. By the time we hit the Neuse River, it was bloing a steady 25-30knots with T-storms tailing us, seas about 3-4ft. It was then that we had a decision to make, cross the Pamlico sound with a stiff westerly wind or wait it out in Oriental. Keep going the wife says. Once we reached the Pamlico, things were noticeably worsening. A west wind has tons of fetch coming down the Neuse and by the time it reaches the sound, it really gets nasty out there. Seas were now at about 6 ft, crashing one on top of another, and winds hit a steady 35 mph according to a local shimper on the radio. Having never crossed the Pamlico, I didn't really know what to expect, I just assumed the crappy conditions would be it and an otherwise uneventful run across. Then I noticed a crab pot float about 10ft off my port side. It was very hard to see because it would dip under every passing wave. When it surfaced, you could barely notice it even then because of the sea foam caused by the wind. It was impossible to run on plane at that point, I tried, but then a crab pot would jump out and say, "slow the *uc* down". From that point on, we dodged crab pots for the next 30+ miles at about 8 knots with a nasty storm brewing on our tail. There is no clear channel across to Ocracoke I learned.
Once we approached Ocracoke, we decided to try a more direct marked channel. That damned channel was nothing but a mine field of crab pots and the winds had now increased to a steady 40mph, seas to the beam so I was tacking to keep the green look off of the wife and kids. After several hailing attempts on 16, a ferry boat finally answered and said, "no one ever uses that channel, its full of pots". Whats the effing point of it being there then I thought. Not wanting to backtrack, we cut across to the other channel since there was plenty of depth, dodging pots while taking water over the bow as we could never get on plane because of 6ft seas and effing crab pots every 1-200 ft apart. We finally fell in behind the ferry and followed him the last few miles into the harbour. We finally arrived, at the same time as the t-storms did, drenched head to toe and frozen. Docking is a whole-nother story in 40 mph winds. The return trip 3 days later was basically the same. We did get a little local knowledge from a commercial fisherman though so that did help to avoid the pots.
 
Event # 2

In August, we decided to spend 2 weeks at the boat. We hadn't planned on going anywhere in particular, just figured we would stay around our home port and explore what we haven't yet seen in our area, maybe a trip to Cape Lookout and Beaufort.

About three days in, we decided to head offshore to do a little fishing. A quick check of the radar showed a few very small storms about 50 miles inland, same as the previous 3 days. Each day, they would dissipate as they hit the cooler than land ocean.

About the time we hit Wrightsville Beach, you could see the storms getting close. Wife checked the I-phone's radar, bigger storms south of us, OK. As we head out the inlet, others are rushing in, WTF I'm thinking, do they know something I don't? Ahh, theyr'e just 20-25' CC's, I'd be heading in too. To hell with getting soaked, we did that on our trip to Ocracoke. An hour or so of fishing proved to be a waste of about 75 gallons of fuel for the day as there wasn't crap hitting today. Winds started picking up, straightline's too, not the typical gusting from every which direction, maybe we should head in says the wife, OK. In less than 2 minutes, one hellacious storm cloud forms over Wrightsville Beach. Wife checks radar again, its all south of here. We decided to continue fishing and wait to see if it would dissipate like they have been for several days. As the front was getting over the ocean, it seemed to be weakening but the lightning was very impressive at this point. I watched one bolt strike a hotel or condo at the beach only a few miles inshore.

Finally, fish on. As I grab the pole with my left hand on the stock of the rod as if to set the hook, I get shocked. Not a static shock like when you make your wife chew the carpet, but a constant, finger in the outlet type shock. Within a minute, the little hair I have left was beginning to stand up and we all heard a buzzing coming from the tip of the VHF antennae. Crap, get down below I yell to the wife and kids (leave the dog up top if you'd like :lol:), put on and check life jackets and take the handheld VHF out of the cradle. I stayed up top and decided to run north since there were no storms that way, yet. I have never felt anything like that but I do have a friend who was struck by lightning. He said he remembered hearing a buzzing from his trailers antennae and then his hair standing on end, scared the **** out of me when I felt it. Every few seconds, the cabin door would open, "can lightning sink us?", "can we die if we're struck?" No, stay down below :grin:

I cut the line at the rod tip and pushed the throttles up to 4k and ran north. At that speed, about 35mph, 2ft ocean swells are not even noticeable in a 340 Sundancer, BTW. Should I have went below I kept thinking? I still don't know but I'm still alive. As we head north storms kept popping up up there also. The wife wants me to head in at the New River inlet but its dead low tide and that inlet sucks egg, so no. The storms were definitely breaking up as they came over the water so I made an eastbound heading until we were about 12 miles out and waited. While sitting around watching the storm clouds, we heard on the radio that a 10 or 11 yr old male was missing in the surf right near our home port. "Why didn't we stay around today instead of heading out so we could help look for him?" my daughter said. :huh: The following day we learned he was not as fortunate as we were :smt009
 
You can see a storm we weathered on my youtube vid:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ilqxCN1Qs&feature=channel_page[/YOUTUBE]
Just skip to around 3:30? Somewhere around there.

Basically, we got caught (3 boats) in a major hail storm. We had 2 anchors out, and the wind just ripped the anchors up. The video ends when we realized we were loose, and being blown into the rocks on shore.

It was a bit scary, we were so hoping the bilge pump was keeping up with the amount of water pouring in. The biminis being up helped a lot. We had 6 people plus gear on the boat, so sinking was in my mind!

We ended up staying tied together as we were blowing into the rocks. Matt and I started our boats, and in tandem drove away form shore. THere was no where to go, as the nearest sheltered area was the 84 bridge, about 4 miles away. As well, no visibility to see that far ahead...so we idled and circled.

Sun came out 20 minutes later, and all was well. Soaked, but still safe.
 
Event 3, tornadoes at anchor

A few days after our lightning incident, we decide to head to Cape Lookout. Boat OK, check. All gear stowed, check. Dinghy tied to bow, check. Dog at the doggie day care, thank god, I'm not dinghy'n that SOB in every few hours.

A quick check of the weather shows calm seas, chance of t-storms each afternoon for a few days. The plan is to anchor out at the Cape for a night, spend the day on the beach and then head in to Beaufort for the night before heading home. AS we pull away from the marina, I with a a sh*t eating grin tell my wife we're running on the outside. She absolutely hates being out of sight of land, especially when there's 3-4 footers out there but, there's no bridges, jon boats and blowbotes to slow for. She's just gonna have to suck it up, besides, it cuts off about 3 hrs taking the outside route.

The whole ride was uneventful all the way there. "That wasn't bad at all, I'd do it again" says the wife. See, all the bitching WAS unnecessary I tell her. We drop anchor and marvel at the carribean like crystal clear waters up there as compared to our chocolate milk in the Cape Fear, I guess that's why they call it the crystal coast. We fished, swam ate lunch etc. I went ahead and pulled the dinghy off the bow and tied it to the port side so as not to be in the way of fishing lines. It was taking a beating and the POS zodiac has already had enough seam failures, maybe this will be its final trip I hope.

That night the winds pick up to about 20-25mph steady. It was hotter than 40 hells out and humid enough to slice it like a loaf of bread. "Cut than damn generator off! Your not killing me and my kids!" she says at bedtime. But honey, its blowing 20+ mph and is expected to for the next 3 days I explain. We're swinging on the hook, its fine to let it run. I give up and lie down thinking of diesels, one day.... 2 hrs later I awake to my sweaty wife poking me at my side. "Crank the generator up to get it cooled off". You gonna stay up with it I say? "Hell no" is all I get as she rolls over. That happened twice more that night.

The next morning I awake to rain, tons of it and find the floor seam of the dinghy pulled apart from bow to stern. Great, we're still going to shore though, we'll just get our feet wet. After it cleared we spent an hour or two on the beach walking, swimming and listing to my wife bitch about the dinghy and how tired she was because she couldn't sleep for how hot it was last night. Off on the horizon, we could see storms moving in so we headed to the boat to get ready to head in to Beaufort. When we get to the boat, I break down the dink and stuff it on the bow as she listens to the forecast and checks the radar. It wasn't looking good even though its only a 30 minute run to town. The winds were wipping at a steady 25-30 mph and then the rain came. We decided to wait it out on the hook.

2 or 3 hours later, we heard on the local OTA broadcast that Cherry Point had already had 6 inches of rain and there was no sign of letting up, the worst was yet to make it to us. Then, in that annoying NOAA womens voice, I hear "a tornado has been spotted in Emerald Isle with a N.E. movement at 28 mph, take cover if you are in the path" What if your on an effing boat? Do you hold your breath underwater? Wife was down below, didn't even hear it. I figured I'd keep my mouth shut, I had already heard enough about this trip. I checked the charts, a N.E. track of the tornado from where it was last spotted puts it at guess where in about 20 min? Cape Lookout of course. The storm heading at us was one of the most impressive I'd ever seen, I thought about grabbing the camera but that would require asking the wife for it. I instead decided to let out more scope to the anchor line bringing it to about a 10-1 and putting away everything loose on deck. She came up and almost crapped her pants at the sight of the storm, wind and rain. Damn NOAA bitch comes on again, this time she hears it and has a little **** fit.

I have no idea how strong the wind got to as the storm neared but I would guess there were 40+ mph straighline winds and rain that would test the waterproofing of a frogs ass. We never saw a tornado but the storm that produced it was unlike any I had seen in a long time. There were several parts of the front that had rotation in it which worried me many times. We ended up staying on the hook again that night and I again, didn't sleep because of the lack of generator use. The next day, she made me ride the inside back home through all kinds of storms. Of course there was absolutely nothing out over the ocean.

Lesson learned in this adventure? Next boat is to be diesel.
 
Newbie: That sounds like a run of bad boating weather. I was starting to think the dog was the problem but when you left him behind:grin: the witch winds still found you:huh:. Glad to hear you skinied through it all unharmed. The worst has to be over:smt038. You've payed your dues. ...Ron
 
billandamy: That hail storm blew up quick. Did you save the little yellow boat? And what about Ginger? I was a little concerned when your bud held her head down for so long:lol:. ...Ron
 
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