I just sent this account of Hurricane Dorian our to all OCC Members
Commodore’s email September
I know our American Members have no qualms about sailing in the Canadian Maritimes when there are hurricanes about. However, for us Europeans, the mention of a hurricane stirs deep anxieties. Anxieties we discovered in the days ahead of our planned September return to Shimshal in the Bras D’Or Lakes, Nova Scotia.
Sure enough we got caned by Hurricane Dorian just eighteen hours after arriving back in Halifax. Eighteen hours of frenetic activity that saw us leave an exposed mooring, find ourselves a hurricane hole and then prepare the boat for Dorian.
By the time the first gusts arrived we were exhausted by a busy working week, travel from Wales, jet lag and the hard graft of lugging heavy anchors, sails and chain. We were so in need of rest that we made the unconventional decision to leave the well-prepared boat to face nature’s wrath alone and jump ship for undisturbed sleep on Terra Firma.
But where to go? There aren’t many roads around the Washabuck River and our gorgeous little cove had no vehicular access and no tracks. Just super-dense bush. With no other options available we went into the woods taking with us an instant hurricane shelter in the form of an antique and obsolete life-raft that we can no longer get anyone to service. Bought in 1999 for our first Atlantic crossing, we were amazed that a tug on the lanyard gave us an incomparable refuge to snooze in whilst the storm raged and the wind roared continuously with the ferocity of a 747 on take off.
That was our first and, hopefully, our last night in a life-raft, during which we discovered the unpleasant truth that our old raft didn’t keep the rain out. By morning we were both soaked to the skin and lying in what had become an elaborate paddling pool. We were, however, well rested.
At first light the wind had shifted through 180 degrees and we could no longer see our boat from our dripping shelter. I crashed around in the jungle to find a different view of Deep Cove and, to my intense relief, glimpsed Shimshal in the dawn light riding the gusts and straining at her lines. Her anchors and shorelines had kept her in the centre of the pool and in deep water even as the wind had clocked from NE to W with storm-force intensity throughout.
In 16 hours the barometer had fallen 40 points to 962 millibars, but by the time it got back up to 990 it was blowing a mere 30 knots. We were able to get back on board our lovely, dry, warm boat with fresh coffee and pancakes to celebrate our North American baptism. We had survived our first hurricane albeit in an ancient life-raft a few metres from the sea in a forest of low lying black spruce. That’s probably a first - especially as our boat was not wrecked but was entirely unscathed. At least we had obeyed that well-known adage of sailing folk to ‘only step up into a life-raft’!
The evening after Dorian had passed we were visited by Bill Heaton, an OCC Member we ‘met’ on the OCC Facebook Page the evening before the storm. He had sat it out a mile away in Indian Cove. Being from New York he is familiar with such extreme weather events and soon came the inevitable question, ‘just why exactly did you leave such a comfortable and dry boat that wasn’t sinking to go and camp in the woods in a life-raft?’. We shrugged our shoulders and just said rather, self consciously, ‘Brits don’t do hurricanes’. Bill nodded knowingly and the conversation turned to Digital Nomads, Blogging, Vlogging and Social Media in general.
The OCC needs to do more to support Bill’s generation of young, talented and resourceful sailors finding new methods to support their live-aboard cruising lifestyles. You can help by viewing (and liking) the video of his yacht, Calico Skies, riding Hurricane Dorian with all crew members aboard and with their life-raft unused and on deck where it is supposed to be. Visit @Calico Skies Sailing for Bill’s account of storm survival in which a neighbouring skipper flipped his RIB whilst setting an anchor as the hurricane raged!
That’s all of our old life-rafts used up and so the next time a whirling and terrifying hurricane comes our way we are going to have to deal with it the North American way and stop being fussy Brits!
Meanwhile, other more intrepid OCC Members have been performing extraordinary feats of derring-do. Jeanne Socrates came ashore after 338 days at sea and the indefatigable octogenarian, Bill Hatfield, managed to fall overboard in mid-Atlantic. Being Bill he was able to effect a self-rescue that saw him back on board and underway to Sydney half a world away. Yet another remarkable voyage currently in progress is that of Edward Hart, an 85 year old OCC member, currently crossing the Pacific on his second solo circumnavigation and this time on a Nor'sea 27. He usually prefers still smaller boats! His track can be viewed at: Share.garmin.com/edwardhart
The OCC Team have been busily arranging events worldwide for our Members. We will be sharing a stand with Mailasail at the Southampton Boat Show (J374) later this month and plans are afoot to appear at DΓΌsseldorf and Annapolis in the future. Be sure to check-in at the OCC stand if you are at Southampton. There are also dinners coming up in Southampton, Chesapeake, Sydney and Annapolis as well as an Ocean Safety Seminar we are sponsoring in Gran Canaria on 4th November.
There are a lot of Events going on so please do support them if you can. In particular I know that there are still some places available for the Southampton Dinner on 18th September.
https://oceancruisingclub.org/members/EventApplication?ID=13
As I write this email it is 5 days after Dorian and we are alongside in the delightful marina at St Peter’s where Gerry Gibson is our much loved Port Officer. Unfortunately the power is still out and, as a result, the swing bridge guarding our passage south is not working. As we sit on the dock it occurred to me that our our Hurricane Dorian experience is a perfect example of OCC Mentoring at it’s best. I had spent the flight out to Halifax reading the OCC Forum posts on hurricane preparation and by the time I dropped anchor in our hurricane hole, I had the whole plan worked out in my head thanks to those that have had the foresight to record their experiences. Thanks are due to OCC Forum contributors and hurricane survivors Nigel Studdart and Dick Stevenson. Your advice and online mentoring probably saved our boat!
One final plea for advice. Please recommend a use for a recovered life-raft that now sits in our forward heads refusing to be squeezed back into the box it sprang from. I suspect it will be there for some time as a reminder of the night we camped in the forest during a hurricane.
Simon
