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.