Tropical Storm Moves Off | Sailing Blog - Technical Hints and Tips - Sailing Television

Tropical Storm Moves Off

1130 the winds drop to 10-12 knots and the storm is over.
mangrove calm
We haven't budged and have had no visible problems. I will go into the mangroves later and check how our "mangrove lines" did but all appears to be well.

Meanwhile everyone is poking their heads out, examining their boats and sniffing the air to make sure Tropical Storm Chantal is really gone!!
Mangrove-planMR
Here is the updated graphic showing what happened to the boats in our little mangrove community (see original here).
The forward-most catamaran (lower-centre) dragged in the strongest gusts from the SE. They dragged back and turned sideways, and managed to hit directly side on to the bows of the monohull behind them. They stayed that way for some time (15-20 minutes?) and I was amazed that the monohull's anchor didn't drag sooner. But with a large cat side-on to the wind the strain must have been enormous. So eventually the pair of them dragged back further and crashed into the larger catamaran.

The two boats hung for a few minutes then the first catamaran continued to drag right out of the anchorage - I didn't see them again. The monohull is about 40 feet and they managed to raft up to the large catamaran (a gorgeous 50 footer) and the two stayed rafted throughout the rest of the storm.
graphic cat bows
Here is the bow of the big cat - crunched in but I couldn't see any more damage.
catbows
Note the many fenders hung down. Since there were crews aboard all the boats throughout the storm they were able to prevent much more damage by putting the fenders down as the boats came together. Also there was no more than a small chop since our mangrove was so small and enclosed with no chance for the seas to build up and cause the boats to bounce.

On the radio there has been much talk of boats dragging out in the main harbour. But no one was hurt and no boats sunk I think! Really only a few boats dragged their anchor or broke loose their mooring. The problem, as in our mangrove, is that one boat dragging often turns into a disaster for 2,3 or more other boats.

Storm Over!! Incredibly it is a calm afternoon - was it just this morning we took the genoa down?? The storm came and went in less than 3 hours. I run in to the grocery to buy a steak for dinner. We deserve it!!

steak

Hurricane Blog Entries
Part 1 Hurricanes - Watching the Weather
Part 2 Tropical Storm Likely
Part 3 Tropical Storm Chantal is Coming
Part 4 Securing in a Mangrove
Part 5 Tropical Storm Chantal Arrives
Part 6 Tropical Storm Moves Off

We filmed all this for an episode in Season 9 - Martinique Tropical Storm here on Vimeo
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