Preparing for Irene

Lake Champlain,

44 28.58 N 073 15.27 W

I got the following from our friends Jeff and Wendy. They are on board the Westsail 32 Calpyso on the Neuse River in North Carolina. Wish them well.

Hi,
Hope you are doing well and out of the path of Irene.
We are at MCAS Cherry Point.
Tied in well with a spider web of lines.
Tried to Haul on Monday but all yards full by 1200.
Anticipated 10' surge in the Neuse.Say one for us and we will let you know how it ends.

Jeff & Wendy

We certainly will say one for them.  Also for George and Carol on Traumeri, and Les and Susan on Last Dance, also on the Neuse River. They and the others at Blackbeard Sailing Club has a good hurricane hole plan for their boats, plus places to stay on land, so I presume they won't be on board.  

We also have family, Dave, Cathy and Sara in Zebulon, NC.  The wind and surge should be no problem, but they live near the bottom of a hill so rain runoff might be a concern.  We'll say one for them too.

Meanwhile, we are still on Lake Champlain in Vermont. We are 300 miles from the ocean so one would think that hurricanes should not be a factor. That is mostly true, but not entirely true. The big thing of course is that there is no storm surge on a lake.

On Sunday we'll get 40mph sustained, gusts to 60. Waves on the lake will be 6 feet (Sounds small but waves on this lake have a period of 1.3 seconds. They are very punishing and often make trawlers entirely airborne.) We have ridden out conditions like that several times before.

We don't have any place to tie off like Calypso. We'll ride at anchor in Porter Bay.  That bay has good protection and hopefully not many boats. I'll drop my 80 pound Luke.That won't drag. My main worry is other boats dragging into me.   

You may wonder why we don't take shelter in Otter Creek.  Protection from wind and waves there would be almost total.  We'd hardly notice the storm.  However, after 4 or more inches of rain, the creek will have a flash flood and it will not be nice to be.