Don't trust weather report- hindsight tale

[Tetepare]

This is not a catastrophe story, nor one of bravery (on my part, anyway) but a quick tale about weather.

We needed to run west 12nm to home port, but had planned to do so in the late morning; the early morning was forecasted to be 8-9kts NE on the quarter, 2-3ft waves, building to 15kts and 3-5 in the afternoon.

In the morning, another boat (41', 23000lbs) said they weren't going to breakfast with us, they were leaving. Forecast was now 20kts NE starting about noon. We elected to do likewise, as did boat #3.

We pulled anchor to the slightest south breeze, and motored up the bay which was like glass. Hmmm. The charter fishing boats are coming back in...they never come in unless it's very rough. As we neared the exit from the bay I noted a slight ripple in the water, from the NE. But only then and there, behind me the water was glass.

Exiting the channel we powered into 2-3ft breaking waves. Winds NE 15-20kts. These conditions existed NOW, unreported by any weather station, four hours earlier than anticipated.

Within the 10 minutes of clearing the harbor and getting enough water under the keel to turn 70 degrees toward home port the waves were hitting 5'. The boat was wallowing, as was the 41' when she cleared.

Coffee brought into the cockpit, promptly spilled all over. A cutting board left the galley counter and put a divot in the sole. I wanted to get some sail up to steady the boat, but was too busy. Cockpit cushions were thrown down below, as they (we humans with them) were sliding. Wife not happy. The dinghy surfed into the transom and probably put a chunk in it; it was quite the chore to put an extension line on the dinghy painter. No catastrophes, just enough small crap that had to be taken care of.

So it was a good 10 minutes of wallowing on breaking waves before we could get a sliver of headsail up. That made things a lot more comfortable.

Our daughter was reading below, then fell asleep for the journey. That's what happens when you grow up on a sailboat.

The ST4000 autopilot did quite (surprisingly) well until the waves hit 8'. Not all waves, most were still 3-5', but every few minutes we'd get a series of three 8'. Off with the autopilot, begin hand steering. This removed me from dealing with most issues.

Wife was nervous. I always thought Small Craft Warning meant "LETS GO SAILING", but wife has never seen eye-to-eye with me on this. Wife felt queasy, most of it psychological. I talked her through it- "look how well she's riding!", "that headsail makes a huge difference!", "you're doing great!" and the white lies "only 1 hour 20 to go!".

The boat was new to us last year, and had been neglected. So we worked, both physically (repairs) and built confidence to get to this point. My confidence that the boat was doing fine helped. Showing confidence in my wife's bravery in the face of conditions, "stuff happening", and her discomfort helped. What really made a difference were the little lies about how long we had to go.

Later, the 41' reported seeing 25kts, I'm sure there were higher gusts. the weather buoy data clearly showed that winds peaked at 9am, not 2pm as predicted, and then subsided to 15kts in early afternoon, when it was supposed to be at it's worst. No weather report or prediction ever noted that the high winds arrived early, or that the worst had passed hours early- it's like the weather people never went outside.

Somewhere along the way wife had banged her ankle. I got cut below the knee, no idea when or how. Fortunately the shorts I was wearing had already been permanently blood stained. Aside from the dinged sole, not much else moved, as it we keep it fairly well stowed. Now we know the cutting board can take flight, so that won't happen again. The damned TV mount remained undamaged- I believe TVs don't belong on boats, but there it is still, absolutely fine.

So no big story, just observations on weather predictions and crew comfort. I could go on about breaking my knee while 3 hours from port solo, but that's a different story.

[rslifkin]

Certainly not the first time this summer (or ever) the weather forecast for Lake Ontario has been dead wrong. I've seen plenty of times where they got the wind direction right, but not the strength, timing, or sea state. And other times where things were exactly as forecast until a sudden moment of "hmm... that wind seems stronger. Yep, those are definitely 2 - 3 footers now instead of 1 - 2"