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Good luck to everyone down there including one of my sisters who live in Pensacola. If it causes a lot of damage I will probably take vacation time and bring my chainsaw and other tools to go help here out. My prayers are in the hope no gets hurt/killed and that no damage to her property or anyone else's down there will be drastic.

Catigale wrote:I had wind pull 3-4 feet of furler out on dock even with a sail tie in the clew ring.....

WOW!

I see so many tails sticking out because people don't furl their headsails fully. Just gives the wind a nice bit to grab and pull the sail out.

Typically I'll wrap the sheets several times around and then tie a piece of line round the sail just for extra safety.

Big Storms: Take the sails off. Take everything off that wind can catch.

I had wind pull 3-4 feet of furler out on dock even with a sail tie in the clew ring.....

That is good enough for me. Hard to imagine it, but hearing it can happen even with the clew tied off is enough to pursued me to take the jib/genny off before bad weather. Thanks for the note.

Just a quick update from Lakeland...nothing. No wind, only drizzles of rain and an occasional gust breezing through. Booorrring...I coulda been working on the boat all day, and instead I have her all wrapped up in a tarp to keep the "driving rain" out. Herschel, I'd be surprised if your boat even got a good washing out of this!

No hurricane parties, no "lights-out" fooling around with the admiral...no fun at all!

No looting, no crazy people out in the storm, no trees falling on stuff, no downed powerlines...sigh...nothing to report.

Friend down in Naples said they got a lot of rain, but not much wind even, and the main band of the storms crossed right over them.

I'd like to hear from Ixneigh down on the SE coast near Key Largo...I think he probably took a pretty good beating even just from how long it lingered.

If it does pick up some speed out in the Gulf, I'd expect it to head further west than they're predicting...the wobbly path of that storm makes me think of "Wilma", just meandering around down in the lower Gulf. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Always the problem with hurricanes...if you wait for the weather, it's too late. Ergo, you are bound to prep for a storm tht isn't going to happen some large fraction of the time...

Food for thought... The energy in Isaac coud power the needs of the United States for a week...( heard but unconfirmed...I've given the calculation to the students)

One thing I learned from hurricane Charley is honestly they don't know thing and the projected path can change in a minute - I live in Daytona area and they swore Charley was going into the Gulf and with less than 12 hours to impact sent out a emergency "Hunker Down" Alert in other words they blew it and a cat4 is going to rip across the state. I strongly suggest that all southeast boat owners keep a eye on things and be prepared. By the time Charley hit me it had weakened to a cat 2or3 lost power for a week more damage than I ever seen before. So while projections are helpful Don't Trust Them! keep a careful eye and batten down the hatches, Good Luck Everyone

....and don't focus on the Cat 1 2 3 4 5 thing, either. When Irene hit upstate NY last year, it wasn't even a hurricane, just a tropical storm.?..still causing billions of flood related damage in New England....

Catigale wrote:....and don't focus on the Cat 1 2 3 4 5 thing, either. When Irene hit upstate NY last year, it wasn't even a hurricane, just a tropical storm.?..still causing billions of flood related damage in New England....

How true. Tropical storm Ernesto a few years back did some nasty damage to Raritan Bay, NJ including sinking a friend's $250k Passport sailboat seen in photos below.

Link to pics

Lots to learn about securing your boat from the fleet captain report.

Just a quick update from Lakeland...nothing. No wind, only drizzles of rain and an occasional gust breezing through. Booorrring...I coulda been working on the boat all day, and instead I have her all wrapped up in a tarp to keep the "driving rain" out. Herschel, I'd be surprised if your boat even got a good washing out of this!

Yes, it has been a "non-event" here in Orlando except for a lot rain and overcast.

Always the problem with hurricanes...if you wait for the weather, it's too late. Ergo, you are bound to prep for a storm that isn't going to happen some large fraction of the time...

I agree, but as I have gotten older (67 now), conservation of energy has crept into the formula for me. Mostly, I try not to think of the ratio of time spent maintaining, cleaning, protecting, transporting and rigging the boat vs. time spent actually underway. But, I suspect I am in the 7:1 range. I just couldn't quite get myself to go to DEFCON I on this one with the projections going the way they were. Fortunately, it looks like those of us in Central and South Florida will do OK. I wish the best for those in the northern Gulf area.

My oldest son's girlfriend is a softball player at a college 50 miles south-west of New Orleans (Thibodaux) , and their coach is making them come in this morning for weight training even though all classes were cancelled as of yesterday (Sunday). I believe that area, or even the whole State, is in a state of emergency. I don't know (yet) if her area is under mandatory evacuation orders (yet), but being that it's in that little lump of land sticking out into the Gulf just outside NO, I can't imagine it's not or won't be soon.

She's not happy. Neither is my son. Neither am I.

As of noon today, City of NOLA is in state of emergency.

Tell the testosterone challenged coach NO GO.

Just wondering how Mac owners in "middle America" in the wake of Isaac are faring.

I rarely have to deal with weather of this nature, but what about simply lowering the mast and securing it as for trailering, including taking the forestay and jib off and putting it in the cabin? Is there some reason you wouldn't do that? Seems simpler than removing the sail from the stay.

An interesting question. My first thought, though, would be that, if we do lower the mast to the trailering position, it would seem sufficient to just secure the furled jib to the mast in several places and let that suffice. As a second thought, I would suspect that the furled jib, detached from the mast, would be a bit unwieldy to wrangle below---doable, but a bit of a challenge due to the stiffness of the furler encased stay.

Lower mast, remove sail, remove forestay at hound and tie extrusion to mast every two feet with sail ties....