Damage to boats, marina in downtown Gulfport Florida after Hurricane

[catalystcat]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Just seeking information. I don't know of any suitable 'hurricane hole' creeks, in SE Florida, that would be worth a 200 mi trip, in 'bad' weather.

There are holes and there are creeks. As for creeks, they tend to require local knowledge and even local resident cooperation.


As an example, take a look at Willoughby Creek, very close to Manatee Pocket. Topologically it's excellent, including wind protection and local elevation. But, you would want permission to tie up to the shore (except a couple of very special spots).


A few years ago, I bought a home there, because it was one of the rare places that were that protected and I could get to with a mast over 65'. When I sold it, that was also a major factor for the new owner.



We got a good brush by Ian and it was very mild compared to everywhere else along that area.



As for holes, there are canals and sheltered areas dispersed along the ICW that are pretty good for some cases, such as Palm Bay (not the town, but the little bay at the mouth of Turkey Creek).


If you are willing to drop your mast there are others, such as Sebastian River and the Eau Gallie river (only good now that the dredging project is over).


There are also some OK (some good, some OK, some sketchy) places with limited fetch and good sandy bottoms (e.g., some of the shoal protected places near Wabasso; near Hooker Point in behind Sewall Point; along the Hobe Sound to Jupiter ICW leg; near the confluence of the Indian and Banana Rivers; and some holes near the spoil islands just N of Fort Pierce).


It's a bit of a scavenger hunt to find a place and even more work to figure out if it suits. That's one of the reasons you need to do the homework way in advance.



There are similar looking places to the South, but they can have poor holding or too many poorly anchored neighbors. e.g. Lake Sylvia or Lake Santa Barbara.

[BlueH2Obound]

Originally Posted by Shanachie

If you would have run to the Okeechobee Waterway and the east coast -- you need a mast smaller than 47 feet to do that -- you would have lost. Milton blanketed a large section of the state and battered the area near Port St. Lucie.

Shanachie,

I can't speak to any of the other many points you made from personal experience, but in the case of the quote above, stating that heading into the "Okeechobee Waterway", you are wrong. Or at best, only partly correct and potentially very misleading.

We were at our home, just off of the Caloosahatchee Canal, part of the "Okeechobee Waterway", and no issues with Hurricane Helene, or Milton aside from a couple of inches of rain, and winds. The winds are easily mitigated by doubling up mooring lines, and putting out additional fenders.

• No storm surge, because as Chotu stated in a later post, the surge just can't get here, unless Fort Myers is under 40+ feet of water, that is.
• No wind waves, because there is no fetch for the waves to build.
• No flooding in the canals, because if the water level rises too high, either from rainfall, or releasing vast quantities of water from Lake Okeechobee, that water will overflow the Ortona Lock, and inundate the surrounding, lower countryside before it rises more than 4', which the docks around here can handle.

Many (I know of at least 6) boats arrived a day or two prior to Milton making landfall, from Fort Myers area to weather it out here. There were many open spaces available at various docks in the neighborhood even so. We had one more spot available, which I offered up here, and on Trawler Forum, with no takers. As far as I know, these were all offered up free of charge. People even ran boaters into town for supplies in their cars if needed. It's what you do for other boaters.

This neighborhood, although kind of unique, is not the only sheltered place around. There is a "keyhole" just to the East of us that affords space for many boats to tie off to the shores if needed. Lots of places to hide out. As far as I know, no one was there.

Now a caveat: If there is a tornado that drops right on top of you, all bets are off. There WERE a number of tornadoes in Southern Florida with Hurricane Milton, but non that affected us.

[nofacey]

Trinidad or the ABC’s, way out of the hurricane zone.

[notoldbilbo]

Originally Posted by Chotu

I went with this spot.



https://maps.app.goo.gl/GqX8jgZQ2XRNfnyY7?g_st=ic

(27.5009167, -82.5121944)

From a very long distance... A peer at the Google Maps picture ^ had me looking closely at an attractive oval wooded inlet some 800m. west of Chotu's spot, and another one some 1200m. NE.


I have a much smaller boat and no local knowledge. Would some kind soul care to advise a 'virtual visitor' on the merits/demerits of these eye-catching nooks and crannies?

[MSgt]

When I lived in The keys [from 91 to 02], the 'togo' location for our vessels was Shark River to tie off way back in the mangroves.

[lifeofreilly57]

A marina is the last place I'd want to stay in a hurricane, bashing into docks, other boats breaking ree and bashing your boat, no thanks.
Once watched as boats drifted by in my mooring field still attached to dock parts while my boat stayed on the 1000lb mooring. One power boat had a whole finger pier nicely tied to it while it drifted to it's demise.
This was during a freak late season nor-easter with gusts up to 70mph.
I've ridden out tropical storms on anchor with the only issue being boats dragging by that weren't properly anchored.
If your going to outrun a storm you'd better leave 4 or 5 days early, before the effects start to impact the region.
That doesn't always work either. In Grenada a tropical storm was forecast to hit directly on the island, a number of boats left to run to Trinidad, the storm went south of the island and ran right over the fleeing hoards. They got pasted but fortunately no one was hurt and there was minimal damage incurred.
There' no one strategy to deal with huge storms, all are unique and unpredictable to a point, so avoiding one is dependant on the particular situation.
A marina in a hurricane? No way.

[Dooglas]

Put this in the context of Hurricane Milton. Who, in heavens name, would take a pleasure boat under 75' to sea in the face of a category 5 hurricane to avoid possible damage in a marina?

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Dooglas

Put this in the context of Hurricane Milton. Who, in heavens name, would take a pleasure boat under 75' to sea in the face of a category 5 hurricane to avoid possible damage in a marina?

Not me unless I knew I could get some serious miles behind me before the storm got close.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Chotu

I lived in Florida for 15 years and went through four hurricanes (category three or higher) with an eye that passed right over my boat.

the first time I ever played the game. I really lost because I wasn’t playing. I was in Los Angels sitting at a restaurant and saw a hurricane on the TV at the bar. Oh! So I rushed to find out what was going on and then rushed to get a plane ticket to go save my boat. well, they were all canceled. You could not fly there. So I started driving. Route 10. Goes from LA to Jacksonville. By the time I got there it was definitely all over. The mooring field had dragged. The entire mooring field. And my boat smashed in the corner , where the travel lift is with all of the rest of the boats. I think everyone knows how long it took me to build this boat and exactly what went into it. All of that smashed into the corner within a year of this boat being launched. Several boats sank. chunks of my boat were taken out at the bow and sterns. the dagger boards were eaten up by people’s dinghy davits. up and down both sides of the boat is a lot of cosmetic damage.

I think I’ve earned the right to play the game.

I left that state precisely because of the 105 degree heat and the fact that i don’t enjoy playing the game in real life at all. Florida is an incredibly stressful, hot, wet, lousy place to live. I’m sorry. But I really don’t like i. Living there is so stressful and so hot that it puts you into a bad mood and in my case, makes me stupid. My brain slows down from the heat . I’m so much happier now that I left it. great place to visit occasionally, but it’s not to my liking environmentally.

i’m not sure why you are taking offense to people practicing their hurricane response ideas. everyone learned valuable lessons here. Because we had a real hurricane to practice with. typically, this thread would just go on and on with people thinking their hurricane preparation idea is the best one and they would never be agreement or consensus about what worked or what didn’t work in a real hurricane. So, the thread is kind of useless. In this case it’s not. The thread was so useful. It’s almost a first for a forum. We learned that it’s OK to run. The imaginary boats that went to Pensacola had days of good weather. They didn’t experience the hurricane at all. And they were only going 5 kn.

my boat also did fine and would have done fine on a 15 foot storm surge as long as debris did not dislodge it. That’s where my mistake was. Typically I would have gone into a different type of watershed than the one I chose off of Tampa Bay. And I have. I have used the St. John’s River and went into a creek off of that, and I have used the Caloosahatchee and went most of the way to Okeechobee. Those are indeed hurricane proof. You get the wind, but that’s it. Nothing else. but where it was located there was not a 15 foot surge and they’re never could have been. It was so far inland that it’s really hard to predict exactly, but it may not have seen any storm surge at all where it was located. It was in a town call Ivy Estates. Ivy Estates is as far inland as Brandon. Pretty sure they didn’t get storm surge in Brandon. so it doesn’t matter if it was 15 feet feet or not because it doesn’t go that far inland, which is precisely why i choose places like that to cram my boat.

Did the exact same thing in the St John’s for some other hurricane too. Worked great.

As long as you’re not in a marina you can go through a major hurricane without damage in my experience.

and yes. I’m a single guy. My family is in real estate, so after a lifetime of sitting around the dinner table, listening to lawyers, escrow, closings, I have no real estate . Boat is my everything. I don’t have other distractions and real estate would be like an anchor tied around my neck as a traveler.

we all have different situations. But I don’t think you should expect a former Florida resident to not play the hurricane game. Even people looking to move to Florida in the future. And besides, me, with 15 years living in Florida, and the other guy that went to Pensacola lives in Southeast Florida. It says right on his profile. so it’s not like it’s not people playing the game aren’t or weren’t florida people. the OP was also trying to formulate hurricane strategies because he’s moving to florida. A valuable exercise. this wasn’t three people from the UK trying to play a game. These are people who are affected by or who have been affected by hurricanes trying to hone their skills.

I was transferred luckily after about 8 hurricanes. (Cat 1-Cat 3/4) (Pensacola) 1995-2009.

For the Cat 1, (Danny in 1997) a lady friend and I had dinner and drinks at a restaurant on the Bay. Then went to her place. I left at around 1 am and went straight to our apartment's dock and watched/helped the guys resetting the lines on their boats.

The winds were getting quite high by that point.

In the late 90's, I didn't have much trouble dealing with the heat but by 2005 or so it seemed to be getting really hot.

I sold both my beach cats in 2005 and started cycling with the triathletes and bike racers.

Both my Beach Cats survived Cat 3/4 Hurricane Ivan in 2004 with minimal damage as I had them at my new apartment which blocked a lot of the wind. Plus was on a hill above the bluffs.

Bought my Bristol 27 Cruising Boat in 2011 after being back up here for a couple years. We've been lucky so far with only receiving 65 knot winds from Hurricane Dorian a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH6YMV8kSaE

[Mike Vogdes]

Have your boat hauled, blocked and shrink wrapped and keep you fingers crossed.

[Leadfree]

https://www.foxnews.com/weather/2-bo...on-coast-guard

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Leadfree

https://www.foxnews.com/weather/2-bo...on-coast-guard

TUESDAY?!?!?? They left Tuesday??

They should have been leaving on Saturday as we did in the game

At a meager 5 knots, one of the participants was already in Pensacola on Tuesday

[Lee Jerry]

Originally Posted by Shanachie

For those of you who enjoy playing what-if about what you would do if you lived in a hurricane zone, here's a scorecard:

If you have no family, no commitments and no job, yes, you can take off for eight or 10 days at a time to try to outrun a hurricane the two or three times a year that one usually threatens the Gulf of Mexico.

Your posts read as if you haven't even read the thread.

This has been addressed. If you have other commitments, then so be it. But that wasn't the question asked by the OP, which was (paraphrasing): where is the best place for a boat in a hurricane? Do you agree that if you do not have conflicting commitments that the best course of action is, often times, to move the boat out of harm's way?

Originally Posted by Shanachie

Even so, you are taking these trips at a time of year when the average feels-like temperature is 105 and the wind is light or calm, unless a violent thunderstorm suddenly erupts and batters you with 50-knot winds.

Of course, that wasn't the case for this storm, but that was probably an anomaly.

But yes, the weather forecast should factor into any trip at sea.

Originally Posted by Shanachie

And, one day, you will guess wrong. Hurricanes have strayed a hundred or several hundred miles off their predicted track.

What hurricane in the last decade has made landfall "several hundred" miles from the predicted track three or four days out?

Originally Posted by Shanachie

If you would have run to the Okeechobee Waterway and the east coast -- you need a mast smaller than 47 feet to do that -- you would have lost. Milton blanketed a large section of the state and battered the area near Port St. Lucie.

In my experience, there are no sheltered creeks on the east coast around Port St. Lucie worth traveling 250 miles to hide in.

If you had traveled to Boot Key Harbor in the Keys, a trip of at least three days, you still would have been hit with tropical storm winds.

TS force winds start at 34 kt. The trade winds often blow 30+.

Originally Posted by Shanachie

Most people who own sailboats don't have that option. They have families to care for and protect, homes to save, jobs to fulfill. My waterfront townhouse is worth 15 or 20 times my sailboat. Is that even a choice?

Addressed above, but r.e. the townhouse, why is that a choice, why can't you do both? How do you move the townhouse? Or do you close the storm shutters and bring in the lawn furniture? 15 min tops. Then leave on the boat (if appropriate). Maybe the better comparison is the value of your car compared to your boat.

Originally Posted by Shanachie

Hiding in the Hillsborough River turned out to be a good idea because Milton unexpectedly jogged south. On its predicted path, a 15-foot wall of water would have engulfed Tampa and swept away every boat on the river.

Big storm surges are tsunamis, not rising tides. Read about what Helene did to the west coast of Florida.

That all seems like more reason to not stay.

Originally Posted by Shanachie

In my case, I decided to stay in my St. Petersburg marina, as close to a hurricane hole as you get on the west coast. With northeast to north winds because Milton unexpectedly turned south, that was a great decision because we were protected by the peninsula that is the St. Petersburg Pier.

Still, most or all of the water drained out of the bay because of the easterly winds. My boat and its neighbor, totaling about 30,000 pounds, were tied to an aging piling that snapped when our 14-foot-deep slip dried out.

That propelled the boats forward and under the concrete dock. When the water came back in, the bow rollers were trapped. Luckily, some liveaboards returned to the marina early and saw what was happening.

They got together, jumped on the forward decks and freed the boats before serious damage happened. (They get a case of expensive beer for that for their next dock party ...)

I would think more than that; at least a couple bottles of rum in addition.

Originally Posted by Shanachie

There are other, larger boats still trapped under the docks as I write. The liveaboards are trying to organize larger crowds at low tide to free them.

Which you are helping with to "pay it forward," of course.

Originally Posted by Shanachie

My point is that sh-t happens in hurricanes. You make decisions, and you are lucky or unlucky. As long as you are diligent -- removing sails and biminis, enough lines and anchors, etc. -- your self-proclaimed sailing genius is not going to save you.

The only one making proclamations in this thread is you.

Originally Posted by Shanachie

Also, people who endure hurricanes regularly do not appreciate people from more docile regions who believe they know better because they once visited Florida.

You do realize, don't you, that Florida and the Gulf Coast are big. There are lots of people. Most of them have to deal with the threat of hurricanes just as much as you. They've had their share of time in the crosshairs. Some of them may post here.

This time was someone else's turn. I expect they can empathize with those in the Tampa area better than most.

[Lee Jerry]

Originally Posted by Dooglas

Put this in the context of Hurricane Milton. Who, in heavens name, would take a pleasure boat under 75' to sea in the face of a category 5 hurricane to avoid possible damage in a marina?

Another one you have to wonder if they read the thread...

The point is to leave EARLY (whatever that means for the boat, crew, predicted storm) in order to AVOID the storm. It's not that hard...

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by nofacey

Trinidad or the ABC’s, way out of the hurricane zone.

Although tropical cyclones are rare in Trinidad, they're not unheard of.

1851 - 2019 [7 TS, 3H1, 1H2, 0 H2+]
Date - Wind [mph] - Cat. CPOA* - Name
2 Sep 1878 92 h1 29 UNNAMED
7 Oct 1892 81 h1 33 UNNAMED
27 Nov 1896 46 ts 26 UNNAMED
27 Jun 1933 86 h1 30 UNNAMED
30 Sep 1963 104 h2 51 FLORA
14 Aug 1974 46 ts 27 ALMA
25 Jul 1990 52 ts 69 ARTHUR
14 Aug 1990 40 ts 29 FRAN
7 Aug 1993 58 ts 12 BRET
1 Oct 2000 40 ts 53 JOYCE
20 Jun 2017 52 ts 29 BRET

“Beryl” reached a wind speed of up to 150mph on July 1, 2024, at 2:00 pm local time near Petit Valley.

* CPOA = closest point of approach, in miles