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PostPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 1:25 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:44 am
Posts: 10
Hurricane Irene was long gone and hitting New York, so my wife and I took the Cat out for a spin offshore at Ponce Inlet, FL. The short story is that as we were coming back in from a gorgeous day of sailing on 8 food swells and a steady westerly wind eliminating all chop, we found ourselves caught off guard by a fast moving supercell storm right in the middle of the inlet.

The winds shifted instantly and upped to about 30mph almost dumping us. ( I got lucky). This convinced me to beach the Cat in order to wait out the storm. No way I could sail in it as the winds were climbing.

Beached the cat and brought the sail down. I wanted to bring the mast down but my wife prevailed, wanting us to get away from the mast / lightning rod. We huddled under a portion of the sail as the winds continued to pick up and rain was pounding. 30 min in and the shivering finally convinced us to take refuge under the Cat.

About 5 minutes later, my poor Hobie wave lifted off into the wind, tipped on it's side, and started sliding down the beach. I caught up to it, re-pointed it into the wind, got it tipped back right side up, and moved it up to a wooded post to help keep it in place.

Finally, after about 50 min total, the rain / wind died down enough that we were able to asses damage.

NOTHING ! I LOVE THIS BOAT !.

Raised sail and made it back home. I did sustain a rope burn at some point in the madness but, I don't know when.

So.. lessons ? 1. get the mast down quick. 2. keep an eye on the wind so that you can adjust and prevent fly-away. 3. Watch the weather closely to prevent needing lessons 1 and 2.

Have a good one all !


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:37 pm 
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Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:32 am
Posts: 43
Shocking how fast the weather can change, isn't it? Your story sounds nearly identical to what happened to us in Santa Rosa Sound, FL, (western panhandle area) about 4 years ago. It was a beautiful day and my wife & I were sailing our Getaway down the sound to Pensacola for the Blue Angels show and out of nowhere a super cell popped up. We beached ASAP and I lowered the sail, folded it up on the tramp and put the anchor on top of it. The lightning was intense and nearly constant - like a disco. The wind was 50+ and the rain was beyond torrential. It was all quite surreal. So we're beached on an island with no trees, our mast the only thing taller than 3 feet for miles around. Neither one of us wanted to be anywhere near that thing so we hustled a few dozen yards down the beach and huddled there. We couldn't even see the boat through the rain, but I kept staring in that direction waiting for the inevitable lightning strike/exploding mast.
In 40 minutes it was all over and we walked back to the boat. The wind had thrown the anchor off the sail and the sail was flapping in the remaining breeze. No damage, luckily. We hopped on and high-tailed it back to the ramp.

It's one of our favorite sailing memories now, but it was damned scary at the time!

That's a story you'll be telling people for a long time to come!


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:08 pm 
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Site Rank - Captain

Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:04 pm
Posts: 107
Location: Syracuse, NY
HOLY COW you guys!

Never even heard the term "super cell"!

Thanks for sharing your stories, good to know all ended up well:>



Mimi" the lake sailor" Appel

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 5:23 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:57 am
Posts: 47
Great work getting the cat back to shore! I had a similar experience recently and pitchpoled almost straight away. Anyone got tips on how to keep the Wave upright in 30 knots?

stuart

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2011 Hobie Wave with jib kit & mainsheet traveller


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