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From: Martin I Veiner (no email)
Date: Wed Sep 08 2004 - 01:24:18 EDT
For those of you interested in what "the other guys did" during Frances,
here is my account from St. Marks, FL. Perhaps by sharing our
experiences, we will take away some piece of information that might help
during the next storm event.
My preparations on Micha consisted of the usual ones: reduce all windage
possible, remove any loose deck items, secure all ports and hatches,
remove any large canvas areas, and in general, do all the same things I
have done for surviving many hurricanes in south Florida over the past 45
years. In that time, I have never suffered any damage to any of my
sailboats. I would never be so presumptuous as to assume that survival
was due to intelligence or caution, or whether it was due to hurricane
preparations that I took. For the most part, I have just been fortunate,
as I believe that luck or chance has a bearing on the outcome.
Certainly, if you don't take the preparations seriously, you have a much
greater chance of losing your boat, and other boats close by mine have
been lost. Yet even in this hurricane, there were luxury boats improperly
tied up with flimsy lines and they suffered no damage. Why? Don't know!
I had already done a lot of storm planning and prep due to Bonney and
Charley. But the sheer size of Frances caused more concern. Concerns like
what projectiles might be launched from shore from the marina, or from
boats that owners had not even paid a visit to before the storm arrived.
While I could not control what other people did or did not do, that
always seems to be my greatest area of concern when it comes to
hurricanes. Am I the only one, or do you also get that feeling about
severe storms?
Micha has a large pipeframe canopy over the fly bridge, 16' x 10.5', with
a new Sunbrella cover. I hated to do it, but it had to come off. It will
take a half day for two people to get that laced back on properly, but to
not take it off meant that: a) there would be more windage, and b) the
top would be torn. I have lost small Bimini tops in severe tropical
squalls. They go first. Anyway, anything I thought could be done to
secure the boat was done by midmorning on Saturday. The eye of Frances
was not projected to pass over us, but more towards Apalachicola on
Sunday.
As a result of growing up with boats in Massachusetts, I have always
preferred what I consider the safety of a mooring during a storm. Is a
sheltered boat at a floating dock safer in most instances? Yes! But, my
observations over many years in south Florida are that more boats are
sunk by pilings and docks, and the risk is greater for damage at a dock
if you get a combination of excess tides and wind and you don't have the
necessary scope on your lines. Most marinas do not allow for putting out
the extra scope needed. Therefore, I planned to move Micha from its slip
at Lynn's Marina in St. Marks and go upriver to Newport, where a bridge
that crosses Route 98 prevents a large boat from passing. All day Friday
and Saturday, boats were heading up the river to tie off to the banks in
the narrow river upstream. My dock is 8 miles in from the Gulf, and going
upriver takes you another 4 miles inland. That was the plan - move the
boat upriver and moor.
At 10:00 am Saturday, the boat immediately adjacent to my port side, a
Post 46, was still making hurricane preparations, which they had started
at about 9:00 am(!), and then just before they were going to pull out to
take Anytime up river, they decided they needed more beer and ice before
they left! By the time they powered out of the slip, they turned up
enough silt so that it looked like peanut butter, and the wind was
gusting to 30 MPH. By now it was only 11:30 am, and I decided to stay in
the middle of the two slips. Low tide was predicted to take place at 1:15
pm, and I am usually an hour later. It was too late. Every NOA weather
report had warnings about severe flooding and storm surge. We were hard
aground in my slip 3 hours before low tide, so I had no choice but to
stay put.
At this point, some of you must be thinking: "No problem, just wait for
the tide to reverse and come in and then tie off away from the seawall
and finger piers" (stern docking). That option was removed for us as a
mandatory evacuation of St. Marks was ordered. At 4:00 pm, one of
Frances' feeder bands hit St. Marks with torrential rains and high winds.
All cars had been removed from the waterfront area as during Hurricane
Kate the water had risen to 6' above the downtown parking areas. After
6:00 pm, the authorities were not going to allow anyone to return until
the storm had passed.
I was not the only one caught by the lack of water. There are two major
marinas in St. Marks, Shields and Lynns. At both of these, owners who had
planned to move their large boats out on Sat afternoon were trapped by no
water. The problem was intensified by the fact that they share a common
basin, and Lynn's has a fuel dock at the narrow entrance of that basin.
It just so happens that Escape, a 75' Mathews, was hard aground blocking
the entrance to the basin at 12:00 pm. No boats could pass.
My wife and I went home to NE Tallahassee, nearly 40 miles north of the
marina, and prayed that Micha would be spared. We would stay in touch
with friends on Moon Angel, a Choey Lee 54', and an unamed Heritage East
40' via cell phone. They managed to get up river while there was still
enough water. St. Marks looked like a ghost town when we left.
The eye of Frances passed over St. Marks at 1516 hours on Sunday. There
was lots of rain, and lots of light wind which seldom exceeded 30 MPH.
There had been no storm surge as the storm made land at low tide. We had
not had any extreme tides from flood stages of the rivers in that area,
although that can be delayed by as much as 2 to 3 days. By Monday, boats
were coming back into the marina during just another rainy afternoon.
The hurricane preparation brought out the best in people at our dock. We
helped each other secure vessels that were staying, and proffered little
courtesies like getting something at the store or helping someone move
their car to higher ground. It felt like a community of neighbors and I
hope that atmosphere prevails.
I returned to Micha to find that its two bilge pumps were not working,
and it scared the hell out of me as I opened the boat to hear that a
bilge pump (high water) alarm was sounding. In the case of the aft Rule
3700 GPH, the float switch was working but some small bilge crud had
gotten into the pump and stopped it from pumping. I moved it gently and
it cleared. In the forward 2000 GPH, the pump was fine but the float
switch had scum and it had not started. Both of these had been working
perfectly the previous week. Although the odds of this happening at the
same time are small, I have added to my routine maintenance list to clean
and test these systems once a month.Perhaps the storm or having the boat
tipped caused more debris in the bilge.
All in all, we were very fortunate. Now to get ready for Ivan.
Martin Veiner
Marine Trader DC 44, Micha
1825 Bridgemont Trail
Tallahassee, FL 32312-3623
Tel: 850-907-9969
Email:
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