Worst Weather Experienced While at Sea?

[zeehag]

guy i sailed gom with went always on the magenta line. we caught more tboomers of fflorida. we were caught in rough gom seas of fapalachiacola when the man on noaa vhf weather read a mariners seek shelter about a severe line of tboomwers stretching buoy to buoy off apalachiacola--ok we were not yet there''we coul dintermittently see an occasional w2hite light , and each was in a different place, and they were all intermittent due to the seas we were experiencing... it was ugly and there was much cloud to sea bolt lightning. later we were told our winds were 70 kts .i believe it.
we were in a seidelmann sloop, and it was not fun. we actually made a ditch bag with this one.

[boatman61]

Becalmed for 10 days 70 miles from the Azores...
I'd run out of tobacco 6 days earlier... it was a nightmare...

[zeehag]

omg boaty what did ye do--you musta been in a state.....

[boatman61]

Luckily I had a couple of rolls of Izal toilet paper... for the uninitiated its the 'Teflon' of the 'Bum Fodder' world... anyway... I had a few oranges left so I removed the pith.... the white stringy bits of the inner skin... sundried it and rolled it in a sheet of Izal... not sure which gave the hit... but it saved my sanity... I think...

[first-435]

A good one to have as my first post. Worst weather undoubtedly was in a F7-8 off Cape Hatteras while delivering an Irwin 52 to Norfolk. (Thread drift- I can honestly say that the Irwin 52 is the best boat I have ever lived on and the worst one I have ever taken to sea !) I also sat at anchor through hurricanes bertha and fran but up the Cape Fear river with no problems.

I have also been becalmed in mid atlantic for an age. My problem wasnt the lack of baccy but the gin supply was really low !
Chris

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by first-435

I have also been becalmed in mid atlantic for an age. My problem wasnt the lack of baccy but the gin supply was really low !
Chris

I have a good tonic for that....

[TacomaSailor]

Thunderstorm in the middle of the Sea of Cortez - 45 knot winds and choppy seas but real problem was constant lightning hitting just 100 yards from boat. We could see the water boil up as the lightning hit

Had to turn off all the electronics and put them in the oven - hoping it would be a Faraday cage and protect against stray currents when we got hit

those storms usually stopped in the middle of the sea and didn't move any further west so I ran off before it. That storm chased us clear across the sea for five hours and did eventually reach the Baja east coast.

don't mind wind, don't mind waves, but lightning scares the suffing out of me

[Hoofsmit]

The lizard point bottom of the English Channel returning from the isl of Silly, force 7 wind against spring tide trying to avoid the over falls in a 22ft Sealine, we used 3x the fuel as the trip over with working the throttle to stay in the troughs of the surfers, more that I had my 3 kids on board, they thought it was great fun being weight less coming down the waves, Falmouth entrance had never looked so good. Probably very mild to some of you guys have experienced but I learnt a lot of how to be in charge of a boat and keep the fear from transferring to the crew/ kids

[Ocean Girl]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Luckily I had a couple of rolls of Izal toilet paper... for the uninitiated its the 'Teflon' of the 'Bum Fodder' world... anyway... I had a few oranges left so I removed the pith.... the white stringy bits of the inner skin... sundried it and rolled it in a sheet of Izal... not sure which gave the hit... but it saved my sanity... I think...

I was working the psych ward when we had a patient that would roll up coffee filters and smoke em, not sure what he put inside. Don't know why they didn't just let the poor guy have a cig! Bigger fish to fry.


Storms,
65+knots in the Atlantic, well clear of land so just neded to keep the boat afloat, ( gusting 70-80 depending on my storytelling mood for exaggeration ). Was a wind storm that lasted 13+ hours, but the crap seas still hit us afterwards, just felt like a walk in the park after those winds. Was the most scared I have ever been, it was my first true bluewater experience and the boat was taking on a lot if water.

I've been in a field of waterspouts, at the time I was too much of a newbie to really be terrified. It was fun watching them form, get up steam, suck up all that water, start to wobble, then wildly break in half, and all that water gently falls to the sea. Very cool.

Bad lightning storm. Lightning struck all around us, just a boat length or more all around for at least 20 or so minutes. Could not understand why it didn't strike the mast, we were out in the middle of no where, and definitely the tallest thing for miles.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Becalmed for 10 days 70 miles from the Azores...
I'd run out of tobacco 6 days earlier... it was a nightmare...

No diesel or no hurry?

b.

[Group9]

Sailing across the Gulf of Mexico from New Orleans to Grand Cayman into 25 knots and 10-12 foot seas, and suddenly getting seasick, and throwing up for two days before I got my sea legs back.

Weird, because it almost never happens to me. I do know now why people hate it so much.

[robert sailor]

I agree on the becalming, its some of the worst. We were becalmed for 3 days on a trip to Hawaii, the rest of the trip was almost all below 10 knots of wind, really frustrating.

Highest wind was off of Niue in the ICCZ, wind was in the 50's and a boat about 25 miles in front of us was knocked down 3 times. Fortunately the seas never got that bad before we slipped into the lee of Niue about 2 in the morning. Had much worse rides 200 miles off the Washington Oregon coast and between Tonga and New Zealand, bloody square waves there at times.

[alaska pirate]

25 miles SE of Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, we had 60+ hours of 55-70 knot winds and 25+ foot seas. Pretty surreal dropping into a 50 foot deep trough with the relatively calm winds and climbing up the front of the next wave into the fury of full gale winds.

[SkiprJohn]

2 hurricanes, 1 typhoon. Aboard ships not sailing vessels. 45 degree rolls on a destroyer is not fun. Trying to make 6 knots for steerage and being pushed backward 3 knots as we climbed waves.

[mikecin]

Winds and gusts to 60 kts; seas to 25 ft. got to see two things I'd never seen before; the ocean blown flat and spindrift. Five of us were taking the boat to SFO to start the Pac Cup; we were 18 miles off of Depot Bay Oregon in a 36 foot sloop. We were able to ride it out and get into Newport , Oregon. During the Pac Cup we found that we had cracked the mast at the spreader fittings; had to turn around and go back.