Hurricane Ike lessons learned
Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 9:02 pm
Hurricane Ike rolled through almost two weeks ago now. It was not an enjoyable experience. Our 350 "Golden Handcuffs" (ex-Longhawk), took a direct hit. We've had the boat only about two months now; it doesn't even have the new name on it yet.
Our boat was moored on a floating dock at the Seabrook Shipyard marina, which is a few hundred yards away from the Kemah Boardwalk, which was basically obliterated. Thankfully, our boat survived, though we were in the hardest hit part of the marina. We were damaged though. Hopefully, with insurance and time we will be good as new again. The previous owners took excellent care of this boat. Now, it looks like it went through a stock car race.
Having now been through a hurricane, I suppose we are in a position to comment on storm preparation. Here are our "findings" or "lessons learned"
1. Secure your boat well, with thick, new-ish lines. Our boat was secured with a ton of 5/8th inch lines that were all very new, in addition to a 1" spring line. Afterward, while inspecting the damage, we saw the remnants of others' lines. Old lines, though thick, will fail. Thin lines will fail. I haven't measure it yet, but it looks like the storm surge was something like 11 or 12 feet. At that point, our marina was essentially in open water. I can only imagine the type of punishment our poor vessel endured.
2. Don't haul out just because there's a hurricane! Some websites say to do this; apparently there are some statistics to support this. However, jackstands don't work with an 11 foot storm surge. Those boats were deposited far and wide.
3. There's only so much you can do. Even if your boat stays put, others won't. They will find yours and hit it.
4. Do not have a slip next to a yacht brokerage (we did). They did nothing to secure their boats. We were told before the storm "Well, they're not our boats. We called the owners and told them to secure them. I'm sure it will be fine." They claim it would make them liable; but I can't see that holding up in court. It would be hard to make someone liable for adding an extra line to a boat before a hurricane. Many of this brokers boats were damaged: A large, heavy Hans Christian came out of its dock, and took the bow off of a Tayana ketch, before running into our boat. Our anchor got stuck in the windvane and rigging at its stern. I think our boat must have torn off most of its windvane. I had to pry to two boats apart. All together, I'm very impressed with how our boat did against such a heavy boat. The old 35-foot morgan that was next to us just disappeared.
5. There's not many places you can put chafe gear on the 350. The one place we did get some chafing was on the fiberglass near the midship cleat for our springline. We could have put some sort of chafe protection there.
6. Don't count on the mainsheet to hold the boom in place. Our cleat-thing (not sure what to call it) that holds the mainsheet doesn't do a very good job, and it did come loose in the storm. We took a longish, 1/2" rope, ran it from one sheet winch, up to the boom, wrapped a few times around it, and brought it down to the other winch. I'm really glad we did that.
7. Take your radar off if you can. I wanted to, but decided that there was a good chance I was going to either drop the radar in the water, or fall off the boat and mangle myself. Well, the gimbled mount that it was on cracked, again attesting to the punishment it must have endured.
8. The boat could really use some cleats mounted actually on the stern. The rear cleats on our boat are mounted on the sides, and this prevents doing a criss-cross of stern lines.
9. Fenders help, the more the better. However, they obviously weren't enough. Who knows what a fender does in 80 mph winds?
10. Do not hang your fenders from the the lifelines! I just didn't think of it at the time. Curiously, our port stanchions are bent inwards!?!
11. Think long and hard what is going to rub against the dock in rough seas. If I could do it over again, I might go bow-in instead of stern in. Our stern chewed the dock pretty well. The dock chewed back.
That's all I can think of for now. Pictures below.
Our boat was moored on a floating dock at the Seabrook Shipyard marina, which is a few hundred yards away from the Kemah Boardwalk, which was basically obliterated. Thankfully, our boat survived, though we were in the hardest hit part of the marina. We were damaged though. Hopefully, with insurance and time we will be good as new again. The previous owners took excellent care of this boat. Now, it looks like it went through a stock car race.
Having now been through a hurricane, I suppose we are in a position to comment on storm preparation. Here are our "findings" or "lessons learned"
1. Secure your boat well, with thick, new-ish lines. Our boat was secured with a ton of 5/8th inch lines that were all very new, in addition to a 1" spring line. Afterward, while inspecting the damage, we saw the remnants of others' lines. Old lines, though thick, will fail. Thin lines will fail. I haven't measure it yet, but it looks like the storm surge was something like 11 or 12 feet. At that point, our marina was essentially in open water. I can only imagine the type of punishment our poor vessel endured.
2. Don't haul out just because there's a hurricane! Some websites say to do this; apparently there are some statistics to support this. However, jackstands don't work with an 11 foot storm surge. Those boats were deposited far and wide.
3. There's only so much you can do. Even if your boat stays put, others won't. They will find yours and hit it.
4. Do not have a slip next to a yacht brokerage (we did). They did nothing to secure their boats. We were told before the storm "Well, they're not our boats. We called the owners and told them to secure them. I'm sure it will be fine." They claim it would make them liable; but I can't see that holding up in court. It would be hard to make someone liable for adding an extra line to a boat before a hurricane. Many of this brokers boats were damaged: A large, heavy Hans Christian came out of its dock, and took the bow off of a Tayana ketch, before running into our boat. Our anchor got stuck in the windvane and rigging at its stern. I think our boat must have torn off most of its windvane. I had to pry to two boats apart. All together, I'm very impressed with how our boat did against such a heavy boat. The old 35-foot morgan that was next to us just disappeared.
5. There's not many places you can put chafe gear on the 350. The one place we did get some chafing was on the fiberglass near the midship cleat for our springline. We could have put some sort of chafe protection there.
6. Don't count on the mainsheet to hold the boom in place. Our cleat-thing (not sure what to call it) that holds the mainsheet doesn't do a very good job, and it did come loose in the storm. We took a longish, 1/2" rope, ran it from one sheet winch, up to the boom, wrapped a few times around it, and brought it down to the other winch. I'm really glad we did that.
7. Take your radar off if you can. I wanted to, but decided that there was a good chance I was going to either drop the radar in the water, or fall off the boat and mangle myself. Well, the gimbled mount that it was on cracked, again attesting to the punishment it must have endured.
8. The boat could really use some cleats mounted actually on the stern. The rear cleats on our boat are mounted on the sides, and this prevents doing a criss-cross of stern lines.
9. Fenders help, the more the better. However, they obviously weren't enough. Who knows what a fender does in 80 mph winds?
10. Do not hang your fenders from the the lifelines! I just didn't think of it at the time. Curiously, our port stanchions are bent inwards!?!
11. Think long and hard what is going to rub against the dock in rough seas. If I could do it over again, I might go bow-in instead of stern in. Our stern chewed the dock pretty well. The dock chewed back.
That's all I can think of for now. Pictures below.