First gale and hail storm... Lets not try that again once is enough.

[sailingdream]

Well today will be a day I will not forget easily. This all happened on Lake Ontario just off shore of Oakville. My club was having a cruise from Toronto to Oakville. I decided to go off shore about 5-6 miles on my first tack to hopefully have a long run towards the Oakville club. Winds where in the range of 15-22 knots.  On my second run the wind started to die down a little so I decided to start the engine up and motor sail instead of bobbing doing 3-4 knots, since I could see that the weather was going to change. When we first started off it was sunny. First front pass without a problem lots of rain and wind was still in the range of 22knots, and right after the  sky's turned blue. I was still wearing my tshirt and shorts. No gear on, figured I was wet already not going to be much help putting on the banana suit when I was already wet. About 30-40 mins later other front rolls over and winds this time are upto 30 knots. And once again skies cleared. before the first two I had already dropped my sails.

At some point during the sail I hear on the radio coastguard warning of gale force winds in Western Lake Ontario. So I made a note of that. About 1 hr after the second wave I look ahead of me and I see the skies REALLY dark and begin to think this time I'm not going to be so lucky, I had the girlfriend grab my iphone and I quickly looked at the radar, I'm in trouble now. All I saw was this blob of RED coming right towards us. I had been flying the jib alone to keep me moving since after the second wave the winds were below 15 knots. I'm thinking its a REALLY good time to roll up the jib before its too late. I begin to try and roll it, it won't move I look towards the bow and see that my line is all wrapped around the roller furler drum. This is a BAD sign I go up front while the girlfriend grabs the helm(and my daughter wasn't feeling well and somehow fell asleep down below) to see what happened. My shackle  that keeps the drum from spinning came apart(the pin is most likely at the bottom of the lake. I have no choice but to drop the jib and tie it down as best as I could with the little time I had.

I jump back to the cockpit and look over to see the another club member on a Catalina 30 that I was sailing with, she was motor sailing with her main up. I'm watching her going right in the the storm, which I could tell this was no weak cold front. I get on the radio yelling like a freak to drop her sail now! She either didn't have her radio on or didn't hear me. She was a little ahead of me so she got hit first by the gale force winds and hail! The last thing I saw before I was totally blinded by the wind, hail and rain was her well past the 45degree mark and in the process of being broached. The wind was brutal and moth ball size hail killing me. Water looked like it was boiling with the hail hitting it. Again I'm still in shorts and tshirt. I turn my back towards the wind to prevent the hail from smacking into my face. I have war wounds now on the back of my legs and arms and neck. I had the boat at 2500 rpm trying to keep the boat into the waves(at most 2meters) I have the helm ALL the way to starboard but that was futile I was heeling over towards the port side and wind was turning me around in the direction I didn't want to go. In the long run I had been totally turned around 180 degrees and heading back to Toronto. It lasted about 2 maybe 3 mins. But it was the longest 2-3 mins of my life. I didn't have a chance to look but the winds must have been over 50 knots easy. I exited the gale with no damage(that I can tell). But my jib was in the water.

Once I could see something, I saw that the C30 was still upright and the main was looking like swiss cheese. I was worried more about the C30 then myself and my crew(Girlfriend and Daughter down below). I know the C34 can take a beating.  

I'm not looking forward to doing that again, once is enough, I have bought the "I survived a gale" tshirt already.

[Stu Jackson]

Great story, well written, glad you both survived.

Read a few good books:

Singlehanded Sailing - Frank Mulville, Richard Henderson

These two cover many conditions and how to best deal with them

Calder's Cruising Handbook is very good, too.

Rousmaniere's Annopolis book is good.

This weekend I got my firsat view of the original Bowditch.

You did very well and, yes, the boat can sure take it.

[sailingdream]

 Thanks Stu for the heads up on the books. 

After the fact I was thinking what I could have done different.

Boat came with a Sea anchor which I was thinking maybe I should have thrown over. Or the storm jib I have deep in the v-berth.

Good thing is all is well with no one getting hurt. Next time I will be better prepared. :)

[sailingdream]

btw. The shackle pin was in my anchor locker! Talk about luck, for once something didn't fall overboard.

[Ron Hill]

Sailing : I'm sure that before you reinstall that pin you have a hole drilled in it, so you can safety it with a black wire tie or stainless lacing wire. 

All of my pins are safetied like I recommend above the water line and ONLY stainless wire if it goes into the water.  That includes all shackle pins and bowlines in haylards/other lines.  A thought