Chance Of Thunderstorms

Just another Friday. Can't wait to get out of work and jump on the boat for a quick sail. Weather forecast calls for a "chance of thunderstorms." But, they always say that in the summer. Doppler radar map looks OK.

Still, to be safe, I'll stick close to home. I can always duck in if the weather takes a turn for the worse.

Sailing is good. 10-15 knot winds. I go back and forth, round and round for an hour or so. The sky begins to get dark and I head on in. I'm only about a half mile off, the wind behind me.

Then the wind dies. Nothing. Sails flap. That's strange. I haul down the sails and fire up the engine.

Suddenly the wind starts piping up. Only now its on the nose. The wind has turned around nearly 180 degrees. The breeze starts building and keeps coming. The water becomes agitated, covered with small whitecaps. Within minutes, the whitecaps turn into steep breaking chop. Wind is howling now. I'm having trouble keeping the boat into the wind. Just the force of the wind on the hull is pushing the boat sideways, heeling her way over.

The forward hatch flies open. I leave the helm to dog it down. The main sail is being clawed by the wind, trying to rip the sail ties off. I wrap the sail with a line. Meanwhile, I'm getting pushed further away.

Back on course again with the engine at full bore. Making little progress against the wind and waves. Rudder of little use. I have to swivel the engine to one side and the other to keep the bow into the wind. Boat is hardly moving. I look to see if the prop has fallen off.

Evil black clouds start rolling in. They look menacing, like Armageddon.

Catching alot of spray over the bow. Every other wave in the face. Now the rain starts. Big, fat raindrops that hurt when they hit you. Feels like hail. Hard to see. Lightning starts. It's far away, for now. I'm eyeing anything metal suspiciously.

Finally reach the safety of my canal. I keep the engine wide open. Screw the "no wake" zone. Race down to my slip. Tie her off good. Jump in the car.

On the way home, there are fallen trees and power outages here and there. Reports of microbursts.

Maybe I won't be pulling that stunt again anytime soon.

Sounds like more fun than my windless weekend , got the ol heart a pumpin I bet you did .

Drama and Trauma!!!!!
Know the feeling...picture postcard perfect one moment, NIGHTMARE from HELL the next. But the experience is a lot like childbith, too soon you forget and go back for more.....
Not sure what microbursts are, but I've sailed too close to waterspouts. Hate to spot thoses mother twisters!!!

Sounds exciting. Yea Right! Those were the same storms that came through here a day before hitting your area. We had 9 confirmed tornados, plus several water spouts hit that hit us here in Northern Lower Michigan. I've never seen such severe weather here. I wasn't sailing, as I was home hiding in my basement. One tornado touched down 5 miles from us and a funnel cloud went right over the top of the house. Glad to hear that you made it back ok.

It was quite a show. I was glad to get in before the lightning really let loose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/04/nyregion/04LIGH.html

Tragic story.

The breeze had been coming from the south when the front moved in from the north. Stood the waves right up.

That was quite a storm. I was at the government dock in North Manitou Island- which is totally unprotected, except by the shore, the night the big storm hit (a Tuesday night). As you said, there was little warning. When they said something about the Doppler radar, all you had to do was to stick your head out the hatch. Eight miles away, in Leland, Michigan, in northern Lake Michigan, they clocked winds in excess of 77 mph for over 20 minutes in the storm. Sheet lightning kept the sky illumninated like it was mid day. Knocked down trees had fallen everywhere, and campers came out of the woods scared (This is part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore - The Manitous are also storm magnets) The NOAA weather broadcasts were also knocked out by the storm.

I survived that one but couldn't leave my exposed position the next afternoon (Wednesday) because of the severe weather alerts, which didn't materialize. I planned to leave early the next morning to get into a protected position before anything else developed (nothing was expected), but the sky looked ugly and got uglier - and uglier. After it was obvious that this was a second big one. NOAA (which is next to useless in these parts in my opinion) issued a severe storm warning

That second storm was the one that did me in. I survived the winds (which were not as severe as two nights previously), but after I thought the storm was over, and had gone below to change into dry clothes, the surge unexpectedly started to arrive from the more open waters to the north. The boat would pull from the dock, roll towards the dock, and then the stanchion catch under the dock deck - jamming the stanchion through the deck.

Have some repairs to do now, but at the time I was concerned about losing the boat. With the help of duck tape, I got the boat home with a lot of wet food and cushions.

That was the worst storm sequence that anyone up there recalled in recent history -but why couldn't I be in a quiet protected harbor, like Leland when it hit?

Ouch. That does hurt.

But, glad to see you made it back OK. You figure on a trip like yours there have to be a few disasters.

It could have been worse. Now this is bad:

This has got to hurt

This could ruin your day too

Ouch. Have any idea about where those were from. How does a sailboat wind up a few fathoms down, but upright?

Sorry, don't know the story behind those photos, except that it was the aftermath of a hurricane down in the Caribbean.

Welcome back. The important thing is that you weathered the storm and nobody got hurt. It's easier to fix fiberglass than body parts.

This is what a maelstrom looks like coming hitting North Manitou Island late last July. I am behind the protection of this concrete and steel dock and was OK until the surge started coming in from the north (the picture is taken looking north). The surge pushed two stanchions right through the deck. It is repaired now but I hate fiberglass repair more than ever.

The people running were waiting for the ferry, and when the storm started shifting direction right toward the island, with prospects of tornado weather, the National Park Service people told everyone to seek shelter. My shelter was the boat.

Sorry about that. Forgot to post the picture and this system wouldn't let me delete the message and start over again. So here it is

This is what the dock looked like the prior afternoon with Solsken appearing to be protected from any possible storm

And, lastly, after I escaped the dock, the storm, and going aground while trying to escape, travelling some nine miles across reefs and inside lighthouses, I finally dropped anchor in 50 ft of water in South Manitou harbor. Consider I am all the way in. This is a big harbor open from the northeast through the east.

Notice that the forward and middle stanchion are not standing straight. Those are the two that were knocked through the deck.

Also notice the whisker pole attached to the port masthead shroud. It is holding the end of the jib halyard. The halyard, being jammed in the masthead pulley could not be raised or lowered (It being fortuitous that we got the sail off and also fortuitous that the halyard was secured before the big storms hit.

Here is a picture taken last week at Mackinac Island. My husband Gary & I were out for about 10 days on our Commander. We had just sailed into Mackinac Island from Drummond Island. They were predicting severe thunderstorms in the late afternoon. This picture was taken from the cockpit within the harbor. It is over the Chippewa hotel on Mackinac Island. When we saw the swirling clouds start to form, I went below to get my camera. While I was down there, Gary saw this become a water spout briefly. It had made landfall by the time I took the picture over the hotel. It is pretty "scary" weather. We were tied to a dock, but I would not call that good protection from a tornado or water spout.:eek:

In my experience, the Straits can be as tough as it comes. And the Mackiaac Harbor can really be particularly turbulent. But it can also be a most beautivul, benign, delightful, pretty, area imaginable with superb sailing. So how long were you laid over in Mackinac? We've had some tough days this past week.

We ended up there for three nights. We really do enjoy riding our bikes on the island, so it wasn't too much of a hardship. We left on Sunday with winds out of the SW to W, only 5 to 15 knots (predicted) to sail back to our dock in Cheboygan. We rounded Round Island, and it was pretty choppy, but the ferries had already kicked up a lot of slop, so we didn't think much of it. But once we got on the southwest side of Bois Blanc Island, all ^&** broke loose. The winds picked up directly out of the west, 20 to 30 mph. The seas became really choppy and building quickly. We decided that Mackinac City was the nearest harbor to sail to, even though we knew it would be on the nose. It took us three hours, motorsailing into the wind and seas for 5 to 6 miles! The seas were 8 feet, with waves breaking into the cockpit. We would actually "stand still" at times with the current, wind, and seas. But we finally made it into Mackinac City. We ended up there for three nights waiting out the blow. Of course the first night was spent at the local pub after that days sail. Now I know where the term "drunken sailor" comes from.

;)

I can empathize. In my earlier years I took whatever came my way, and somehow survived (and today I wonder how I did). Now that I have found religion, I can understand how a couple days at a bar, walking around or reading are preferable to pushing the window of luck. As one acquaintance advised "Remember, Peter, sailing is supposed to be fun".

With the coming of fall sailing, the weather patterns move much faster than in the June, July and August period. The number of hours for the window of opportunity to sail from here to there is short enough in those summer months, but in the fall, it is tough, real short and unpredictable. That is what I ran into last year sailing from Hessel, MI back to Racine in September. That trip was planned to be an easy one weeker. It wound up taking 17 days. A day of consistent weather is not the norm in the fall - or if it is, the winds are so intense and the waves so tough you don't realize several hours have passed because you are comfortable and warm in a bar, or somewhere.

It sounds like you enjoyed yourself, and, after all, that is what it is all about.

My local weather forecast calls for possible thunderstorms for the next 10 days. Should I let that spoil my fun?

Those lying weather weasel forecasters. They have 6 different ways of saying the same thing:

A chance of a thunderstorm

Chance of thunderstorms

Isolated thunderstorms

A few thunderstorms possible

Widely scattered thunderstorms

Scattered thunderstorms possible


I'll believe it when I see it

How I miss you guys....!

....especially commanderpete. And his uncanny ability to post a perfect shot

to show just how ridiculous the human condition can be....

and how much fun it is

to survive another crisis.


Commanderpete - Theis - Sailor Liz - Janice Collins - Mike Goodwin

Hope you all are well...

and sailing up a storm.

Can't agree more. And, C. Pete was one of our premier posters . . .