Microbursts and Multihulls

[downunder]

Jedi,

We regularly get 'bullets' around the Whitsunday islands in North Queensland in some of the anchorages. would be similar to your "willy ways"

[Joli]

We've seen some strange weather on the Great Lakes. Two summers ago I was sitting in the cockpit when a waterspout dropped out of a perfectly clear sky during a windless morning. We were in the marina and it landed in the open dock next to us, 20 feet or so away. It launched dock boxes as it skipped back and forth over the main pier, when it hit a power boat it would mightily shove them around and when it hit sailboat it would lay them over 30~40 degrees in the dock. It looked like it was maybe 20 foot in diameter and it just bounced around randomly. I'm sure if it would have hit someone on the dock they would have been flung. Very strange.....

And it was quite humorous to see people heads pop up out of the boats as this thing passed.

[s/v Beth]

We see them in the Rocky Mountains, and they seem to come from specific areas in the lake, so on a day with changing weather we always keep a weather eye out. Still, they come so fast all you usually have is less than a minute. And they are over faster than I can write about them. Unfortunately my daughter still remembers....