knocked down 3 times

[LOUIS B HOLUB]

Real scarrry stories ! I've never experienced a knock down, and hopefully, never. Glad to hear that the Mac "rights" itself well.

One of the reasons I own & selected a Mac...it's a safe family boat. Its a comfort knowing that all the built in floatation is within this boat.

[mjpurdyca]

The Ottawa River at Britannia just west of Ottawa is renowned for very sudden squalls where small sailboats have been knocked down and sometimes flipped with a number of deaths involved. In the mid 1980’s the Pope visited Ottawa and was to give an open air mass at 2pm near the Ottawa River. Both the public and Catholic school boards released their students at noon to see the pope. My buddy Rick and I, both high school teachers urged our students to attend but knew it was going to be windy and a great afternoon for windsurfing, and anyways we could watch the rerun on TV that evening. On the first couple of runs we were planing and then as we came around the sky was black. We now knew why there were no sailboats still out. The storm hit us a couple of minutes later with thunder, lightning, high winds and the water was churning. We dropped our masts and lay in the water with our feet in the stirrups and watched the sky. What an experience! The storm was over in around 15 minutes, the wind dropped, the sun came out and 25 minutes later the Pope began his mass in perfect weather. We figured there must be something to the Pope thing---maybe Jimmy Buffet should write a song to that.

In another incident I was windsurfing on Ashby Lake the same thing happened and a microburst came across the lake. The flash winds picked up the dock, spun it around and twisted it but both my 26X and our power boat didn’t have a scratch on them. Amazing what the atmosphere will do

Mike Purdy
Jedaro

[Phil M]

About a dozen years ago, a guy was sailing his barely used Mac26C in Saskatchewan on Lake Diefenbaker, which can be prone to very strong wind gusts on the hot, flat, prairie. A large cloud with a strong 'plow' wind knocked him down twice in an afternoon, and apparently scared the crap out of him. He sold the sailboat that summer for a low, low price. And that became my first sailboat! I heard that story about a year after I had already bought the sailboat, and had wondered why I had gotten such a good deal.

Phil M