Preparing for a Category 4 Storm

By

Jake Taylor

Deland, Florida

Owner of P-19 #1436 El Becerro de Oro

I compiled a few notes from my past weekend exercise of preparing for a Category 4 storm. Obviously, getting out of the way is the best option but when that isn't possible (or at least with your beloved boat in tow), here are a few thoughts on how to stay (or leave her safely behind).

Notes from Charley:

Started off the weekend expecting very little wind (huge underestimate!) but preparing for a CAT 4 hurricane (smart thing to do) just in case.

Was tempted to lash and lace my 12x20 6oz white poly tarp (http://www.tarps.com) cover tightly around the boat to avoid the accumulation of water, limbs, leaves, and any other garbage in the cabin/bilge. Figured that if the tarp blew out, the worst I would have would be a one-year-old blown out tarp.

After contemplating the task with small stuff in hand, I noticed that the tarp, secured along the mid-seam at the bow by a Carabiner to the bow pulpit and at the aft end by a bungee to the mast crutch and tacked at all 4 corners by bungees, was riding nicely in 30-45 mph gusts. It seems that a tarp drawn taut at the corners and along the mid-seam but with sufficient space and corner "give" to vent gusts does just that-vents gusts!

I secured all standing rigging to the mast with gaffers tape and ran double runs of 1/2" dock line over the mast in the crutch tying off to the aft end of the trailer. If you don’t have gaffers tape (a strong, cloth tape with superior adhesion but almost no sticky residue) you can use duct tape but remember to execute the following: wrap the first two turns around your object with the sticky side OUT, not down, then resume turns in the normal fashion-with the sticky side down. Doing the two-turn-sticky-side-up trick never leaves that irritating duct tape residue on whatever you might be working with!)

I worried that the trailer would begin to move on its own despite the thick Floratam grass (aka swamp with all the rain we’ve had prior to Charley). I dropped the air pressure in the tires to under 15 psi and lowered the tongue of the trailer all the way down to reduce wind profile (I know, seems odd to worry about wind profile with a tarp over the boat and mast in the crutch). I have read that to further increase resistance and reduce damage to the running gear of the trailer (boat bouncing on the springs and axles through a storm), people advocate blocking up the trailer at 6-8 points around the perimeter. I didn’t do this due to lack of time and sufficient blocking supplies.

I also didn’t heed the suggestion to fill the boat with water. There seem to be two schools of thought on how to best secure a boat and ready it for a storm and they seem to center around either (A) filling the boat with water to weight it down or (B) not filling it in addition to pulling the drain plug in case it fills with water. The latter seems to be a motor-boater school of thought mostly and I had no designs on filling the cabin with precious time and water to overload and risk damaging the hull and trailer with excess water weight on the outside chance the boat might take flight. Besides, who wants to trace all that corrosion in the wiring and connectors after the fact?

I was worried about the forecast for 70-80 mph winds that we were expected to receive. I told myself that the boat handles well enough when flying down the road at 60 (60 mph winds, yes?) so it shouldn’t be too hard to keep it from flying around in 70+ mph winds. Still, I wanted to make sure my insurance man had as few "outs" as possible.

I used the anchor auger system of setting mobile home auger anchors (36" long) at the four corners. This was probably the greatest single piece of prep work I did. I set the 36" long augers nearly 30" deep into the soil. Atop the auger is a U-shaped piece of steel welded to the head of the auger shaft. Through this U-shaped head is a hole for setting a clevis or some such other keeper pin on to which I attached 5,000# yellow ratchet straps across the bottom outboard rails of the trailer (2003 Baja). I also attached a 5,000# ratchet strap to the bow eye on the boat and secured it to the tongue of the trailer. I left the factory bow strap and stern strap in place figuring that if I could tow the thing at 70 mph (not smart but sometimes necessary to pass slower moving traffic!) and have them hold, it would suffice here.

The tendency, and danger, here is to over tighten the straps, sucking out any give or travel left in the trailer suspension. Don’t do this. A snug, firm strap that feels tight and secure is all that is necessary. I did this at the stern (port and starboard) and at the bow quarters (just beneath the registration numbers), also port and starboard. I could have added a fifth auger at the tongue but found it wasn’t really necessary. The beauty of the auger system is that the auger anchors typically sell for under $5/each at any mobile home supply house, shed or "out building" peddler and many hardware stores. **Just remember to remove the augers after the storm because they are shin breakers when you forget about them and walk into them (something I have yet to do but know it is inevitable).

Once the winds came (we were 15-20 miles outside the eye of the storm according to NOAA and NHC tracking charts), I peeked out periodically and watched the tarp during some of the heaviest parts of the storm. It would billow up but with the sides un-attached, it simply vented the blasts and settled right back down on to the boat. After the storm, I inspected the tarp and found no damage to any of the corners, mid-seam or tarp grommets used to secure the tarp. I was worried about how the tarp would fare and really left it in place more as an experiment to see if she would ride out unharmed. Given my results (or luck, you may differ with me on this), I’d leave it in place again. As for the augers, the boat didn't budge...not even a little.

There are other minutiae related to this exercise that I didn’t include because I suspect most of you know that anything left unsecured becomes more unsecured over time. It is possible to survive unscathed from a strong blow (be it a hurricane or bad nor’easter) with a little prep and diligence. Hope this helps you prepare for such an event.