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Hope all of you down on the Gulf coast are battening down well for Dennis...looks like a nasty one, possibly.

Good luck!

Here is the latest storm track:


For anyone who is inerterested in following this more closely, check out this link: http://cw.pwless.net/tropical.html.

Just for interest's sake, here is the same pic again, except from a different source. This one will update with every new computer model, so check back and see how much it changes over time....

This graphic auto updates.

Hey everyone,
Heart of Gold is hunkered down in the driveway as the predictions go down hill quickly. Too bad the mast is down, it looks like there will be plenty of wind for sailing tomorrow.

The yard is secure with over a hundred boats on the hard. Let's hope very few of them blow over. I'll try to keep everyone posted as long as I have power. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers...

Doug,

Good luck to you in Pensacola.

Funny seeing that screen shot of weather.com - looked so normal, yet odd; especially looking in that area where you normally look to see if it's going to be windy or not and seeing "SSE 77mph." That really got me.

Let us know how you fare,

--- Rachel

I just got back from the yard (again, third trip today...) to pick up some augers to which I can tie off the tongue of my trailer. I suddenly became paranoid about having the trailer swing around in a gust. If we still have power in the morning, I will post pictures of the old girl. I imagine I am using over 250' of line right now to secure the furler to the mast, the mast to the boat, and the boat to the trailer. I'll probably double that amount by morning.

I think the toughest thing about prepping the past few days (other than moving around boats in the midst of Tropical Storm Cindy on Tuesday--yes, we had to maneuver a 40' Mainship Trawler into the trough in 35 knot wind coming over the starboard quarter), was that I had to secure boats I had repaired from Ivan's damage. And on top of that, we painted a boat on Monday, another on Thursday, and we primered a third yesterday. Really strange stuff, but then again, what about a storm like this is ordinary?

As promissed, here are some pics of the finally secured boat.

I added the "spring lines" off of the trailer this morning, just in case of cross winds.


I aquired these augers last night. They are screwed 3.5 feet into the ground. That should hold it!




Comments regarding the condition of the trailer are not welcome. It is a work in progress.


It was quite the adventure finishing all the lines on top of the boat in 40 knot winds. Fortunately for me I don't have a fear of heights (it's the concrete which scares me). If we take the hit I expect we will, I may be out of touch for a week or more. Happy sailing and restoring to you all...

heartofgold wrote: Comments regarding the condition of the trailer are not welcome. It is a work in progress.

huh? She looks just dandy to me. You wanna see some pics of "work in progress" trailers.... well, that'd require me actually using my digicam so never mind.

Hunker down and keep smiling!

Doug, what a fine boat. Thinking of here up the road aways. Hope you weathered the storm fairly enough.

heartofgold wrote:Comments regarding the condition of the trailer are not welcome. It is a work in progress.

Doug,

I humbly submit my own ugly boat trailer photo. This trailer, now seeing new life as a flatbed/rack utility trailer, came to me when I bought the Lyman last year. Few trailers are uglier, though this one is pretty structurally sound.

This is how it originally looked:



Now it looks like this:

What does "pretty structurally sound" mean?

What does "pretty structurally sound" mean?

Umm...it means pretty structurally sound. Not perfect, but not going to fall apart either.

Does it really matter, or are you just going for semantics here? I'm sorry if I chose an oxymoronic phrase. I'll try to be more specific in the future.

Ahh, I see. When I heard pretty structurally sound it called to mind images of the Tacoma Narrows bridge and, at the moment, my boat! It's always disconcerting when you have to qualify structural integrity... sort of like the doctor saying it will be pretty much painless. :)

Back to the topic at hand:

Photos of Dennis' wrath on Ft. Walton:









The one above is the type of fuller damage that I saw a great deal of after TS Cindy.

I'd think that every marina down there would've adopted a "unbend your furled heasail before major storms, or we'll do it for you at double-overtime rates" policy by now.

Really, you'd think the owners would be smart enough to take them down. They get what they deserve, frankly.

Also, why don't people just routinely furl the sheets several wraps around the stay to hold the sail tightly in...and then bring up the furling line and sheets tight for storage.

While this would still not be sufficient in extreme hurricane winds, as a general rule this is the right way to store a furling sail, which can come loose in even fairly benign conditions if sloppily put away. Those few sheet wraps really hold the clew in there. People who leave "triangles" hanging out are the first ones to have a problem when it blows 30 knots, much less 130.

Oh, I know the owners get what they deserve. I'm thinking of the guy in the slip next door who takes a beating when moron #1's docklines part as a result of the extra windage.

True 'nuff!

Well, we made it through, again! Heart of Gold survived without damage. I really feel that tying off the trailer the way I did was what saved her. Where she sat, she was buffeted with crosswinds of 70+ knots. Without that lateral support, I believe she would have gone careening around and over (if not across the street into the neighbor's front door).

Interesting just how different Dennis was from Ivan. The storm winds with Dennis were very compact. Where we rode out the storm, the eye passed 2 miles to our east, placing us in the strongest bands of the eyewall. I estimate that we had hurricane force winds with gusts over 90 knots for about an hour. The shipyard, which is 5.5 nm to the SW, had a maximum gust of 60.4 knots. Ivan, by contrast, buffeted the entire area with sustained hurricane force winds for nearly 8 hours.

In our neighborhood, nearly a dozen homes lost (portions of) their roofs. I don?t mean a few shingles; I mean plywood and rafters too. We only lost a tree which had been damaged in Ivan. It landed in the only spot it could have without damaging the shed, house or fences. Again, we were lucky. Ivan was "terrible", but Dennis was only a bit of a "mennace."

Jason,
Thanks for those pics of Ft. Walton. Being that we were without power for 4 days, I neither saw any of the news coverage nor have had a chance to search around for post-storm pics. (I used to work and sail in Ft. Walton and I am familiar with some of those locations).

I guess I am just a little more self conscious about the trailer than everyone around me. The fenders are rusty, neither the tires nor the rims match, and the bunks are almost comical in their appearance. I lost a wheel bearing on Sunday, a week before the storm, and spent last Saturday morning changing it out. While I was under the trailer, I noticed that one of the springs looked bad; upon further inspection, every spring was rusted and each band holding them together was about to give way. I ended temporarily securing them with hose clamps. Not professional, but it got the trailer home and back to the yard safely.

I am actually about to invest some money in the trailer with a new winch post with which I will be able to raise the mast much more effectively. I will also replace the springs, and I want to improve the bunks as well. But we'll save that discussion for another thread or website....

Doug,

Welcome back. Glad to hear that you weathered the storm with no serious problems. It was fortunate that Dennis weakened just before hitting shore.