Hurricane Irene

[kevMar]

The Mary Gee made it through Irene and a storm sugre of at least 7 ft. Had her tied up on a floating dock and she stayed there in the middle through the storm. Just alittle bit of water leaked through the port holes. At my Sailing Club Blackbeards New Bern N.C. we lost at least 13 boat. The worst on was a 45 ft Cabo Rico that broke loose and ended up on land with her mast through the front living room window of some poor guys house...

[scotty]

Glad Mary Gee made it!!  Sorry to hear about the others.  Good luck to you all.

[Ron Hill]

Kev : You never mentioned it, but did you get the riser reinstalled with out a hitch? 

[BlueWind]

Blue Wind II survived an 11-foot surge in our marina at Oriental, NC, down river from New Bern, without a scratch. This photo is of a Pearson 36 that sank at another marina due to a "broken plastic thru hull coming from the cockpit drain," according to the description on our local online news site. Seems like an odd thing to happen, but speaking of plastic thru-hull valves like those on many Catalinas, has anyone experienced catastrophic failure of the a plastic valve itself?

[wind dancer]

I've not heard of Marelon thru-hulls failing like that.  They are supposedly stronger and less brittle than standard plastic.

[Roc]

It sounds like the cockpit drain failed, letting the torrential rains drain from the cockpit right into the interior of the boat, instead of being diverted overboard.  The C34 has such drains on both sides of the cockpit floor that route the water out the transom.  From the explanation, it doesn't sound it was a marelon thru-hull.

[scotty]

In Santa Cruz we had a Nor' Sea 27 that sunk like that.  It was the hose, not the fitting, but when she went down, she went like a rock.

[BlueWind]

Thanks. I stick a hose on the cockpit drains at every washdown, but it's nice to have the walk-thru transom on the MKII to drain the cockpit for the big ones like Irene. I suppose that's a double-edged sword when it comes to following seas. Haven't experienced that yet.