Caught in a storm

I am a new hobie sailor and only sail on light wind days right now until I get more experience. We were out Saturday and it was blowing 5-7mph with hardly a cloud in the sky and a good forcast. Literally out of nowhere the sky turned brown and it started raining and thundering. We started to make our way in as it started raing harder but with the same wind. Then the thunder, lightning, and hail came. By the time we made it close to the dock the rain and hail were so hard I couldn't even see. Then the wind went from 10mph to screaming, I cut the sail power and tried to lower the main when a huge gust flipped the boat over like it was nothing. Then the tramp caught the wind and the boat started cruising with me holding onto the mast so it wouldn't turtle. As fast as the storm came, it was gone. The whole event took maybe 10 minutes then it was light winds again and sunny. I checked the weather report and it said winds reached 41mph during the isolated t-storm.
My question is...What could/should I have done differently? The main is hard to lower with on the water since the line has to be held out in front to get the swage over. If the boat wouldn't have gone over would have been going so fast it would have been hard to control, especially with no visibility. I'm glad it did so I didn't hit anything.
I knew I would eventually capsize, but this was a little more than I wanted for my first time. Iowa summer storms are quick and nasty.

last ditch menuver would be in my opinion pitch pole the boat on purpose and hang out on the low hull till it blows over.

Thunder (lightning) and hail???

I'm thinking get on land asap, a boat isn't worth a human life.

Last ditch, tip the boat over on purpose, let it go turtle, maybe it won't get struck by lightning, the mast down may slow down or prevent damage at the lee shore. Wait out the storm and retrieve it later.

Glad you (and the boat) are OK.

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hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297

Yo BL,
I'm in the same place as you (novice) and hadn't really given any thought as to what to do if I got caught in a storm. Thanks for the question and answers from everyone. Now i've got some more info about handling my boat. Thanks a million and glad u r ok.
Later
Cory

Depending on how much room you had you could have cleated both sales hard in and ran downwind till it blew over or you reached a leeward shore. I have been in a similar situation and it can be pretty scary! I have run upwind as hard as I can with the main sheeted about halve way out, just let the jib do most of the pulling. I was in a 80km wind and ran her upwind into the closest shore.

Inland storms - or what we call line squalls. The usual suspects here are not so much wind and rain, (although they can be tough to deal with,) but the way in which the wind arrives. Often, this wind will be in the form of a downdraft, or a vicious rolling blast which comes from any direction. So sometimes you can sail your way to safety, othertimes you are going for a swim whether you like it or not.

If you capsize the Hobie, and can stay with the boat, generally you will be wet but safe. That's why I like Hobie Bobs. If no Bob, before you head out, tie a lifejacket to an upper shroud to prevent going turtle.

I like the rule of 120 - if the air temp and the water temp in Fahr adds up to less than 120, you HAVE to be wearing a good wetsuit. Higher than that number, you can get buy for up to 30 minutes in a problem situation.

Sounds like you had a great adventure, and came home safely. May all your journeys be fun and safe.

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2015 H16, with spin,
SOLD 1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947 "In Theory..."
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

agree with JOHN

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Tom & Nancy Page H20 803

You don't necessarily have to go out on the bows to drop the main if you're in trouble. I've found you can quickly get the swage out of the clip at the top of the mast by sharply whipping the halyard. If you do it right it pops right out. Make sure your downhaul is free first, though. Make sure there is some slack, grasp the halyard firmly and bring your hand back toward your shoulder and then sharply snap it forward almost like you're casting a fishing rod. It'll send a wave to the top that pops the swage when it gets there. Dropping the main might have saved you from capsizing. Glad it didn't end badly.

Not wanting to hijack Brians thread, but when I was out this Saturday afternoon I had a flashback to this post which I remember reading several months ago. I had checked weather report before heading out......

I was out in the North Sound (Grand Cayman) Saturday with my wife on our 16. It was a perfect afternoon - no waves if a little light on wind but that's fine when my wife's onboard. A couple of hours in and I could see some dark clouds far in the distance but thought nothing of them as we were heading home and they were no where near us...or so I thought. Within 5 minutes the bad weather was on us, thunder, lightening, driving rain. With the main sheeted all out we were still flying along, the waves picked up to 4-5 feet and visibilty dropped to near zero. I tried turning towards downwind but each time I tried the gusts just kept pushing the bow under (a pitchpole on a calmer day would have been fine, but I wasn't putting my wife in the water in those conditions) so I tried pointing into the wind to stall, but the bouncing around and luffing of the sail was just worse. I didn't feel in control anymore of control so I dropped the main (just about managing to hold on to it as it came down) figuring we could just putt along under the Jib until it had passed. What I hadn't figured on was just how fast we would run under a jib alone. The North Sound is 20 miles across.....we had started out from the East side of the island and I was getting very concerned that land on the West Side was approaching fast. At this point I tried turning back into the wind but I'm not sure whether the squall was just blowing from several directions or whether it difficult to head into wind on jib alone because I just couldn't get the boat to slow down.

Anyway, just at about that point (and about 25 mins into this adventure) the weather started to lighten up....enough to point downwind and surf the waves for an awesome & somewhat relieved homeward trip (and a much needed cold one out of the cooler bag). Hit some more patches of bad rain on the way back but got home in record time (on Jib alone).

Navitgating the canal back to my house was the last challenge of the day. It's a 90 degree bend at the end to reach my house and we were still headed downwind in gusty weather. Let's just say it was tight and I'm glad it was mangrove at the end of the main canal not someone's boat. Ironically, the wind died at that point and I had to paddle the last 200yds to my house.

So, just in case I find myself in this situation again...any recommendations (other than voluntarily pitchpoling)? I had contemplated dropping the Jib at one point but it would just have flapped around as there would be no way of detaching it from the forestay (although maybe I could rig a snap shackle to the forestay ?) and I would have just bounced around on the waves...personally I think there's nothing worse than sitting there watching the mast rotating from one side to the other and the rigging tensioning back & forth.


PS. My wind meter at home recorded gusts of 40mph.

Dogs,

Your story made my palms sweat. I have ridden a couple storms in bigger boats but never on my Hobie. I have also been to Grand Cayman (once) and am somewhat familiar with the geography of the place. I doubt that it would take much to get blown out to sea in the conditions you described. Then, if you`re wife is anything like mine, you`d be looking for a new sailing partner from then on.

Taking down the main must have been an ordeal in itself. But assuming you could do it again under similar conditions, have you ever considered a roller furling jib for your 16? I have one and I love it.

With it, your choices for depowering would be as follows (1) furl the jib (a 3 second job) and run under main alone. (2) If still over-powered, drop the main and run under jib alone (which you already tried). (3) If still over-powered, you can incrementally furl the jib very easily to the point where you are only flying a handerchief size storm jib. With the furler setup, you can reduce/expand your sail at will.

I actually find it most valuble for quickly reducing power in the tight yacht-filled quarters you described. It can really take the pressure off in those situations.


Dave