Whoa

[rfrance0718]

It's been a strange summer in Lake Erie I hope it's not the new normal. We are having more storms than ever,  and they come out of nowhere.

Yesterday the models all said that there was a possibility of a few storms after dark, but nothing huge. Wind was supposed to be out of the southwest so I headed out to an anchorage with good protection in those directions. As I motored into the bay the boats already there were pointed South, as expected. As soon as I dropped the hookhowever, the wind shifted to the North, but it was light and the weather was clear. None the less I thought better of staying and headed over to a another island, running wing on wing on a light Easterly. I motored into an anchorage with protection to the north and west, but decided to head into a marina since I had no idea where the wind might come from. Keep in mind that it was still a beautiful evening and I wasn't convinced that we would see anything big, but the continuing change of direction had caught my attention.

It was a quiet night at the dock and I fell asleep on the settee reading. Still no weather. Next thing I knew I wike up hearing some significant wind and the boat started dancing around. I stood up to  look out when a huge blast hit broadside. The boat healed over about 45 degrees and there was a loud snap, and now the bow swung violently away from the dock. I jumped into the cockpit and saw that my dockside bow line had snapped in half. The other bow line was holding, but the boat had swung way out because the slip was big and there was about 15 feet of scope. Luckily  there wasn't a boat on the other side of the slip. I was able, with some effort,  to uncleat the good line and pull the bow back over to the dock and replace the snapped line. By that time the wind had moderated and I put in the hatch boards and climbed into bed. I heard that it stormed for a while, but I actually slept until morning and didn't notice.

This morning everyone was on the dock talking it over. One guy said that the bow of his 40 foot Carver lifted up like it was going over a  ibig wave. Several people saw my boat rolled over and swinging away fromthe dock. They were kind of horrified.

I heard that some guys a few docks away thought that it was a water spout. I talked to a guy from that dock this evening and heard th the strangest thing.  He said that the noise brought them out onto deck, they watched as all hell broke loose, but they never got the blast.

I've got to wonder how much wind it takes to snap a dock line!

[Captain Kidd]

Wow! Incredible!

In my write up about my trip last week I wrote about sleeping aboard. I have to admit I don't sleep well camping, let alone on a small boat. I mentioned there are two things that worry me: dragging anchor and some kind of "outlandish" incident. I mean what can happen in a quiet cove?

Sounds like you just experienced an outlandish event! Glad all ended well.