Frankenstorm!

[sailorboy1]

from the news photos the world is upside down, cars are in the water and boats are on the land in places!

[GaryMayo]

Originally Posted by Rakuflames

"
Originally Posted by GaryMayo
May turn into a normal storm just bringing in wind and rain. I wonder if the media just wants to downplay the upcoming election for a few days.

Looking for something else to worry about.
Wonder no more.. ;^}"

I understand the skepticism and it's unfortunate that that skepticism was misplaced this time. This is FAR beyond any hurricane I was ever in. Here in St. Petersburg people are desperate to find out what happened to the Captain of the Bounty.

I was hopeing for the best. One meteorologist thought it would track off to sea after it passed Florida. Maybe the captain of the Bounty was listening to that forecast.

I was also on record in many places here telling people to find safe refuge. A storm of this magnitude is nothing to toy with. Most storm models had the storm pretty much following the trek as forecasted.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

How did you make out?

Well my boat was still floating on it's mooring only 1,000 feet away from where I left it Sunday night. With 90 MPH gusts and storm surge I'm not surprised. Only some minor damage to the boat. So I feel lucky. I'm living on board which is where I am usually until the season ends. Here is some posts of the events of the last few days:

THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: HURRICANE SANDY: The Good News and the Bad News
THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: HURRICANE SANDY: DAY TWO
THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: HURRICANE SANDY: DAY THREE: AFTERMATH
THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: HURRICANE SANDY: AFTERMATH DAY FOUR and FIVE

Hope all the other CF members were as lucky as my boat was.

[zeehag]

i have a cousin in nj, in somerset , with her boat in morgan marina, which is gone--so is her boat--but her boat was in the queesawtf creek up into mangroves, and it disappeared from there--26 ft blue hulled pearson with name "serenity now" on transom-
she still has no electricity in her house.- if anyone happens to locate her cute lil boat, please let me know so i can let her know where it is.....

[sabray]

1000 feet away yikes. I'm a little nuts so I put out anchors with the lines kedged to the bottom. This has been a learning experience. it is amazing how chain and line get pushed around below water. Hence the kedging. Double mooring lines with chafe that is dish rags wrapped around the line at the chocks. I lay the anchors late when I have some confidence in wind direction. I don't let them hang out on the bottom any longer then needed . There can be a real mess if you cycle the tides to many times and those anchor lines start twisting.good you made it without damage.

[zeehag]

the thing is--sandy wasnt JUST a hurrycame--was a merging of 3 storm fronts, inclusive of a hurricane--so is waaay beyond anyone's hurrycame experience, except those in "the perfect storm. "
raku--cold fronts do not generally merge with floriduh hurrycames. they do in northeast usa and canada.

[s/v Beth]

Just enjoyed your blogs Mike. I did not think you could still get online with all the carnage that is going on around you "according to the news" Yes, according to what I was reading Mobs were living on garbage and attacking anyone with fuel. People were defecating in their hallways and enraged that the red cross was not giving them everything they needed.
I'm glad that most of that is hype, and the normal prepared person is getting by. BTW- your boat seemed to do well-much better than the ones on the dock.

[Sandero]

Shiva was on a mooring and I can report she survived. The only damage was that the main mooring painter sheared off the bow eye and the security painter took over. Damage - one bow eye.

The wind caused the boat to drag the mooring 700 feet to the SSW. It also put so much pressure on the helm break that it loosened (a friction clutch) causing the helm to go from port to starboard apparently for hours and loosing the nut which held the wheel on... I found the wheel and the nut in the cockpit. I thin the steering system needs some grease. There were boats on the beach and some sank. The B&G AWI still works fine after a whopping 27 yrs atop the mast...

Location.. Northport, LI NY

Next up... Nor'easter... but we are now secured in a well protected marina.

[sailorboy1]

the marina says that my boat took my mooring for a short trip. But is was bascially where I left it with no boat damage.

My dinghy that was at the docks on the other hand now has a leak in it from rubbing on the docks. And the hole is on the bottom which suggests it was really pushed up onto the docks, and back and forth!

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

Just enjoyed your blogs Mike. I did not think you could still get online with all the carnage that is going on around you "according to the news" Yes, according to what I was reading Mobs were living on garbage and attacking anyone with fuel. People were defecating in their hallways and enraged that the red cross was not giving them everything they needed.
I'm glad that most of that is hype, and the normal prepared person is getting by. BTW- your boat seemed to do well-much better than the ones on the dock.

Thanks Newt. As far as communications go things were hit and miss for a few days. As the cell phone tower batteries failed or their generators ran out of fuel things got pretty flaky. There were times when my girlfriend could hear me when I called but, I could not hear her and visa versa. Email seemed the most reliable communications for most of the week. Things have gotten much better yesterday. I'm even able to access the Internet via my phone modem reliably.
Best thing I did was to fill up the car tank on Monday morning. The lines of cars have grown in some cases a mile long around those same stations (if they are open). There also seems to be at least four Police officers at each station that is open directing traffic. Probably a good thing. Living on a boat prepares you for these conditions. My wind generator and solar panels are keeping things nicely topped up. I have plenty of provisions and food. Tonight is Veal Parmigina night on board. I was going to head out on another mini cruise but, with another Nor' easter heading this way it's time to call it a season. Pulled the sail off today, will drop the boom tomorrow. Hopefully the mast will be unstepped and the boat pulled Monday or Tuesday. I'll move back on land but, nice thing about having using a Honda 2000i for my electric propulsion system charging and motoring is I can also take it home with me and use it to power the house. Living on board really teaches you how to adapt to things the weather throws at you. I think for those use to always having things like electricity at the throw of a switch without thinking or dealing with how it gets to that switch are having a bad time of it. Sailors are usually better prepared for adversities bought on by the weather IMO.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by sabray

1000 feet away yikes. I'm a little nuts so I put out anchors with the lines kedged to the bottom. This has been a learning experience. it is amazing how chain and line get pushed around below water. Hence the kedging. Double mooring lines with chafe that is dish rags wrapped around the line at the chocks. I lay the anchors late when I have some confidence in wind direction. I don't let them hang out on the bottom any longer then needed . There can be a real mess if you cycle the tides to many times and those anchor lines start twisting.good you made it without damage.

Yeah, I was thinking an anchor or two shackled with chain to the mooring buoy chain might have helped prevent the trip across the channel.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by defjef

Shiva was on a mooring and I can report she survived. The only damage was that the main mooring painter sheared off the bow eye and the security painter took over. Damage - one bow eye.

The wind caused the boat to drag the mooring 700 feet to the SSW. It also put so much pressure on the helm break that it loosened (a friction clutch) causing the helm to go from port to starboard apparently for hours and loosing the nut which held the wheel on... I found the wheel and the nut in the cockpit. I thin the steering system needs some grease. There were boats on the beach and some sank. The B&G AWI still works fine after a whopping 27 yrs atop the mast...

Location.. Northport, LI NY

Next up... Nor'easter... but we are now secured in a well protected marina.

I tied the wheel up with some line to prevent the wheel spinning. But, unbelievably I forgot to dog the overhead hatch It was down when I left but I found it wide open when I got back on board.

[sabray]

How is the rest of Northport. I think there are pictures in the shipwreck diner of past storms and the flooding was bad in those.. Anchored there a few times. Lovely spot.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by zeehag

the thing is--sandy wasnt JUST a hurrycame--was a merging of 3 storm fronts, inclusive of a hurricane--so is waaay beyond anyone's hurrycame experience, except those in "the perfect storm. "
raku--cold fronts do not generally merge with floriduh hurrycames. they do in northeast usa and canada.

Zeehag -- Sandy was not a hurricane by the time she merged with the other weather fronts. She was "extra-tropical." This was a lot like the "perfect storm," one important difference being that the storm affected a much larger, and more heavily populated, part of the land. What you said was what I have said except that although they continued to refer to the storm as "Sandy," she was no longer considered a hurricane, and had both tropical and extra-tropical characteristics.

One really interesting thing about this hybrid storm was that at her center, the low pressure was much lower than characteristic for that category of hurricane.

Once Sandy had gone "extra-tropical," meteorologists repeatedly urged people to ignore the fact that she was no longer a "hurricane," because they knew the storm was going to grow larger and more dangerous. Both the American and European models predicted that the storm would come into the northeast although the European model pretty much nailed the path of the storm. If you check the weather history, you'll find that this has happened a number of times before. You won't find the precision-based language because weather forecasting has evolved, but it's happened before and it will happen again.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by defjef

Shiva was on a mooring and I can report she survived. The only damage was that the main mooring painter sheared off the bow eye and the security painter took over. Damage - one bow eye.

The wind caused the boat to drag the mooring 700 feet to the SSW. It also put so much pressure on the helm break that it loosened (a friction clutch) causing the helm to go from port to starboard apparently for hours and loosing the nut which held the wheel on... I found the wheel and the nut in the cockpit. I thin the steering system needs some grease. There were boats on the beach and some sank. The B&G AWI still works fine after a whopping 27 yrs atop the mast...

Location.. Northport, LI NY

Next up... Nor'easter... but we are now secured in a well protected marina.

Wow. With the pictures we have seen, it is so heartening to hear the reports from posters here whose boats have survived well. I saw but have not been able to re-locate a picture of a pile of boats -- maybe 100 or more -- on Staten Island. It's all heartbreaking but of course we notice the boats.