Goodnight Irene

Yesterday, Tuesday at 4pm our power, phone and high speed internet were restored...ahh!

We weathered Irene without mishap.

Because of the wind direction, initially NNE and later NNW, we were in the shadow of the woods in front of our home. A bit of an island of calmer winds compared to the whipping we saw all around us. The worst winds occurred late Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
Of course it was pitch black at that time so hard to see any detail. It was reported to be sustained winds of 60mph with gust up to 70mph. I could not validate that from our home weather station because I was asleep but think in our small sheltered cove we did not see anything over 50mph and only as a gust. Across from us on Indian Creek it was likely they had greater exposure and took a bigger hit. We could see the waves from the south side of the creek piling up and over the rip rap.

The storm surge locally was limited by wind direction which for the most part pushed water out of our cove while the storm in general was pushing water into the Bay. Our surge was about 4.5-5' at the highest.

We have a whole house 45kw generator and were quite comfortable when we lost power early Sunday morning. The generator did give us some fits with an incorrect temperate sensor that needed to be re-calibrated after which it ran like a champ. We did have limited internet through a MIFI card but it was painfully slow so we were limited to emails for the most part.

Our tideslide performed quite well during the storm. The boat remained centered in our slip and the fenders on both sides of the boat did not come in contact with either the pilings on the port side or the starboard side dock. It rode up the surge and back down. The dock was underwater for a brief period at the height of the storm surge.

We have four tide slides, two on each side, fore and aft. On each tide slide, the lines were arranged so in effect the boat was spider webbed in the slip. Each tide slide had two 3/4" lines set up as you can see, one fore and one aft.







In this pre-storm picture I did not rig this line correctly. As you can see the lines come out of the block and one is fore and the other is aft. The forward line loops around from behind and this was a mistake on my part. I had some chafing on the forward line as the wind pushed the boat back and the aft line tugged, the block pushed against the piling, chafing that line.

In the future I would rig these lines differently and have both lines coming out of the same side of the block.

The question came up recently about how the slides are secured to the pilings. There are 2 SS large bolts that are through the pilings and secured with washers and nuts, on the other side and two large SS lag bolts about 6" into the piling, top and bottom. The stern has two pilings and the bow had three. The third was added so the tide slide would have the needed height.
These are not coming out anytime soon.

A new storm has developed named Katia but at this point it does not look to be a threat.
wunderground. Best to keep our eye on things.

Irene as the wind cranks up

The wind has started to kick up after about 5 hrs of steady if not heavy rainfall. At this time the eye is still in NC but will be crossing the VA line soon and in Virgina Beach in about 1.5 hrs.

We are fortunate that the direction of the wind is pushing the water out of our cove and what might be a 4-5 tidal surge at high tide will only be about 2-3'.

There are reports of wide spread power outages and in our area and including the Richmond area about 500,000 home with out electricity.

Preping for Irene

We have completed our list of preparations except for cutting the power, which we will do in the morning. The boat will run on the house battery bank and the Trace inverter. We have shut off all non-essential appliances and electronics.

We have added a total of 10 lines doubling up where we can and added fenders on both sides. More on the stb side where the dock is. Using Tide Slides is different than the usual in that you tighten the lines so the boat is held in a web of lines. Here it not only acts to hold the boat off the port side piling but the aft line acts to some effect as a spring line.

We have cleared all the seating and removed the enclosure on the aft deck.

The fly bridge enclosure is off and stowed away and the textaline for the PH is off and stowed as well

Here is a shot of the port side tide slide showing a line to the stern and midships

Hopefully we have done things that will prudently prevent any damage and have secured the boat so that it will handle the wind and any tidal surges that we might reasonably encounter.

Irene.4

Irene has shifted slightly to the west and the forecast for our area has changed again. It looks like Sat night early Sunday will be the worst;

.Sat...Tropical storm conditions expected with Hurricane conditions
possible. E winds 35 to 45 kt with gusts up to 55 kt...Becoming NE
45 to 55 kt with gusts up to 65 kt this afternoon. Waves around 7 ft...
building to 9 ft this afternoon. Rain and scattered tstms early this
morning...Then widespread showers late this morning. Rain and scattered
tstms this afternoon.
.Sat night...Hurricane conditions expected. NE winds 50 to 70 kt...
becoming NW 55 to 65 kt after midnight. Gusts up to 90 kt. Waves around
12 ft...Building to 15 ft after midnight. Rain and scattered tstms.
.Sun...Tropical storm conditions expected with Hurricane conditions
possible. NW winds 30 to 40 kt with gusts up to 55 kt...Becoming
W 25 to 30 kt with gusts up to 40 kt this afternoon. Waves around 9
ft...Subsiding to 6 ft this afternoon. Rain and scattered tstms
early this morning.

I have never seen 15" waves in our area of the Bay before. Not something we would like to be in. It is fairly shallow and these waves will have a very short period.Think washing machine on high agitation and that is a good image. Wave heights in the ocean were reported to have been 48'.

The forecast is for 4-5' tidal surge in our area but the direction of the wind will push water out of our cove and into the creek. So we will not have the historic tidal surges that we had with Isabel.
We have completed all of our preparations and have done as much as prudently possible, both on the boat and the house. We will see if we can maintain electrical power but if not our generator is primed and ready to go. My guess is we loose power.

Irene.3

We just had an update for the Chesapeake Bay from Smith Point to Windmill Point, which is the area between the Rappahonock River to the south and the Potomac River to the north, on the western "VA" side of the Bay.


.Sat...Tropical storm conditions possible. E winds 20 to 25 kt with
gusts up to 30 kt...Increasing to 25 to 35 kt with gusts up to 45 kt
in the afternoon. Waves 4 to 5 ft...Building to 6 to 8 ft in
the afternoon. Widespread showers with a chance of tstms.

Sat night...Tropical storm conditions possible. E winds 35 to 45 kt
with gusts up to 55 kt...Becoming NE 50 to 60 kt with gusts up to 75 kt
after midnight. Waves 7 to 9 ft. Widespread showers with a chance
of tstms.
Sun...Hurricane conditions possible. Widespread showers this morning.
a chance of tstms. Showers likely in the afternoon.

Sun night...W winds 20 to 25 kt...Diminishing to 15 to 20 kt after
midnight. Waves around 4 ft...Subsiding to 2 ft after midnight. A
chance of showers early in the evening.
.Mon...W winds 10 to 15 kt with gusts up to 20 kt... Diminishing to
5 to 10 kt in the afternoon. Seas around 2 ft.
winds and seas higher in and near tstms.

Irene.2

 We have been watching the forecast for Irene for a multitude of sources:

NOAA
wunderground
stormpulse
weatherbank
hurricanehunt
Ocean Prediction Center
barometerbob
cpc.chesapeakebay.noaa.gov

Not sure I have a favorite, they all give somewhat similar data but the presentations and individual data points can vary. Depending on the issue I look at different sites. If you look at the Ocean Prediction Center, the 24 hr wave height predictions at the center of the storm,  the forecast is for 42' waves( at least at the time I write this). That is a beast!

Locally they have not given Chesapeake wave forecast for this Sunday but Saturday night they predict 6-8 waves. Quite significant for this area and assume they will be worse on Sunday dependent on the location of the eye of the storm..

Yesterday it looked like it would be offshore and the eye would not make landfall until near Long Island. This morning it has moved a bit westerly and would make landfall in the Outer Banks. This afternoon the update had another move to the west with Irene making landfall near Beaufort & Morehead City, returning to the Atlantic at the NC-VA boarder.

Our local forecast was not too bad with NNE wind 25-29mph. OK I can deal with that, then it went to 37mph, still not terrible but the trend line was in the wrong direction. Irene was wobbling to the west as the upper level steering currents were not going to push her east as was originally thought.

We decided to be more aggressive in our planning and laugh if we worked hard for naught.

Here is our plan:

Take down all of the enclosures on the flybridge and aft deck. A lot of work.
Take in all of the seat cushions and canvas
Boarding steps brought in and stowed securely.
Set up the lines for storm rigging which means doubling the line to the tide slides and adding chafe protection where needed.
Stowing anything not attached
Disconnection the fresh water lines, putting away the Wetspot
Empty the refrigerator and freezer, dump the ice maker
On Saturday morning shut down all but essential electronics and appliances.
Stow the power cables and shut off the the shore power so only nonessential stuff is running on the house bank. Should be fine for easily 24 hrs on such a reduced demand.
Turn the power off to the dock.

The winds will be from the NNE initially, shifting to the NNW. Seabright will be pointed into the wind. We will sit back and watch the storm; we have a big home generator should we lose power and, hopefully, we are well provisioned.

I would like to think that this is over prepared but another shift to the west by 40 miles and the magnitude of the storm for us will certainly increase and better to do all this while it is nice out and be prepared in the event of circumstances deteriorating.

Irene

Keeping our eye out on Irene as each day brings new information. We like number 96 the best hurricane images .

Depending on the conditions we will be rigging for a storm soon, as Irene moves north and east, further away from us, a tidal surges begins to replace wind worries. Heck we could get both. The Chesapeake Bay can get quite a surge if the winds, tide and moon line up...we will see.

Last year we had an "unexpected" maintenance project, to replace our 23 year old dock. We took that opportunity to have installed Tide Slides  and have so far been absolutely thrilled the results. We also built the dock about a foot higher than the old one. We tie the boat in very tightly and she rises and falls with the tide, spider webbed and well off the dock in the Tide Slides lines. While we have had storms in the past since installing but we have not had a hurricane pass by so this will be the first real big test.

The new pilings are larger and the Tide Slides are robust enough to handle most winds and tidal surges at least anything close to 8+ ft above a normal high tide should be fine. The largest tidal surge we know in our area was 7.5-8 ft but an average bad storm is more in the 4-5ft range.

I will double the the 3/4"lines, shut down the power and take in the boarding ramp as the storm gets closer. Honestly I am more concerned with other boats floating free and becoming a problem so may hang a few fenders outboard?

Here is a link for great weather graphics:  spaghettimodels

33 years and counting

We took a short trip this past weekend to the Tides Inn. to celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary. Our son Billy and his girlfriend Courtney joined us for the festivities. We go about once a year and have a great time. The funny thing is the Tides Inn is  about 20 min by car and 2.5 hrs by boat.
Here to the right is the view of our home as we pulled off the dock.

But we go by boat and enjoy staying at the Marina, even more so now that they have completely redone the docks with new floating ones, our favorite type. The Tides is a very unique place that we really like. It is like "old Florida" type place but in VA.  It still has the  original charm, not the splash and sizzle of over- designed trendy places. Warm welcomes, relaxing and comfortable is how we see it and, of course, good food. For this corner of the world it attracts both locals like us but also folks from other parts of the country and Europe. If you listen you will hear several different languages with French and German the most common. Lots of families visit.  

Jeannie has decided to master ship handling and took Seabright out and off the dock. She had to navigate the tricky S curve in leaving our creek and out to Fleets Bay and the Chesapeake Bay while I handled the fenders and lines. We use headsets made by Eartec which allows us to talk back and forth while one is out of sight of the other. Also it makes docking easier because one of us can be aft and give verbal instructions about how far the dock is away from the boat..they are called marriage savers. They are great. We use a more robust headset than what is standard as they hold up better.

You can see our route to and from the Tides is a big loop. We have to go out and beyond Windmill Point which has a large shoal.

For us locals we cross the Robert Norris bridge by car quite frequently, known locally as the White Stone Bridge. It has been undergoing a multi-year rehab as you can see here. We see it so often from the road that it is fun to see it from the river side.

We liked this view going underneath the center span.

We caught the supply barge headed to the bridge with supplies and "relief potties". We think we caught one guy in action...so to speak!

After the shortest trip of our entire cruising year of 2.5 hrs we arrived and tied up along side the new floating docks and got settled in.

We dropped "One Wingy Dingy" for a little bit of creek exploring.

Of course got to clean up the boat before the fun begins. Most think this is tedious but I enjoy it. Especially if I listen to an audiobook on my Ipod. Makes the work quite enjoyable and of course you can only stop at the end of a chapter even if you are finished washing, I stretch it out to get the timing right.

Here is Seabright sitting on the outside of the marina with the mouth of Carter Creek in the background.

Billy and Courtney were able to join us and help celebrate.

We enjoyed the grounds...

Pretty flowers.....

A bit of golf....the Spa and a fabulous dinner with great company made for a wonderful anniversary celebration.

Dropping anchor and the dog days of August

For many,  summer is their time to get out there and boat, as it was for us for many years.  But now for Jeannie and I, it is our slower shore bound time. A short trip here and there but largely we are not out on the water as much, too darn hot and humid!

It is a time of general maintenance and working the list that Wheelhouse provides for us. After all it is a boat and it seems two new tasks go on the list for everyone that goes off. It keeps me busy, and more importantly,  out of trouble!

On the list is to clean and grease the hydraulically driven Maxwell 4000 windlass. With temps in the 100's and so humid of late I could not muster the "gumption" to go out on the bow and work for a few hours.....Recently we had a morning that was partly cloudy and somewhat reasonable temps so to I decided now was the time. What it lacked in temperature it more than made up for in humidity however.

The first task  was to drop the anchor and take all stress off the chain and windlass.  

Check out the Tide Slides we had installed last year. The boat will rise and fall with the tide while staying very tight and secure in the slip and most importantly off the dock and pilings. These are really great!

To service the windlass, you begin by disassembling from the top down;  with slack chain, I removed the cap at the very top at the capstan.

Loosening the band brake and the SS clutch nut so it is freely moving and then removing the cap and screw.    

Looking down at the clutch cone     

The chain is now off as well as the chainwheel, band brake and clutch cone. You can see the fully dissembled windlass down to the deck unit. The black on the deck plate is dirt from various anchorages that has only been partially cleaned. Another ten min to clean the entire area, getting all the dried black mud off.

A slightly different angle of the parts and pieces of the dissembled unit.

The important task was to clean the windlass and greasing it with lithium grease as it is being reassembled, A bit of metal polish to the unit and it looks great. Haul up the anchor and test that every thing is as it should be and the task is done.

Wash the decks and clean up a bit put the tools away and one more task off the list....a summer of making progress, one step at a time.