A27 Hurricane Prep

[rnummi]

Calling old salts.... As we enter the tropical cyclone season down here, Is there a proper or recommended tie down method for the A27? I ask the question with the following caveats: I'm not especially warm and fuzzy with the strength of my through deck cleats. I'm just seeking some general advice from those who have successfully gone theough a hurricane/high winds as to the best preps to undertake before the season. I'm thinking more bumpers, double tied lines at minimum. How about canvas? Leave it on? Take it off? A slight variation for your answer....I'm under a concrete bunker slip open on all four sides. Any recommended line diameter? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[RobS]

Important thing with lines is to protect from chafing. Post some pics of your slip. What about haul out? Most insurance policies offer a haul out endorsement that will cover expenses in full or in part of a named storm is forecasted. Not that a haul out is necessarily your best bet, you need to weigh out all options and factors...

[rnummi]

Here you go Rob..Two aft pilings, cement dock cement roof.

[rnummi]

Haul out wouldn't be an option. City Marina, hundreds of boats, limited available hauling capacity or room to store, essentially she's gonna have to make it in place. The dock and roof aren't going anywhere. Built like a u-boat pen.

[rnummi]

The slip is in the absolute most protected area of marina.... The worst thing (I think) would be wind driven drainage of Tampa Bay putting her on bottom and/or storm surge raising water 3-5 feet above "normal". I guess some further questions for storm dogs would be "how did you secure lines to pilings in event water rises to piling height"? What's optimum tightness in lines? Spring line tight or loose?

I really have never gone through a good blow while tied up...and want to use the collective AOG knowledge base to answer the question "If you can't pull the boat.... Do this...." I'm not opposed to "go to west, buy big a$$ bumpers, 1 a 1/2 inch lines, tie to anything solid etc.

Don was telling me his Windows blew out... Ok, then leave them open? Right now it's a hypothetical exercise. I'm open to any advice.

[Vic K]

I'm 77. All the years spent on the Gulf Coast. A lot of hurricanes. Best advice I can give: Tie it up the best you can; disconnect the electricity; close the thru hulls; make sure the insurance is paid up and get the hell out of there.
Vic

[Vic K]

One more thing to past on. It's not your tie up you have to worry about it's the other boats around you. Most of the damage done after the wind and water is done by other boats that aren't tie up. 99 per cent of one of the yacht clubs in this area was destroyed so the method of tie up didn't matter a heck of a lot.
Don't wait to the last minute !!!

Vic

[Jay Knoll]

Strip the canvas, you want to reduce as much windage as possible. The marina we are in has lots of moorings for the winter crowd which are mostly empty during the summer. We take our A27FC out to one of those, two mooring pennants and chafe protection. I'd rather take my chances on the boat bobbing and weaving on the mooring than slamming around in our narrow slip. Those moorings held our Crealock 37 (16,000 pound displacement) thru several Cat 2 storms so I'm pretty sure that they will hold our relatively light FC. So if that is an option for you, and the mooring field itself is relatively protected (ours is between an island and the land) I would suggest that you consider it. Of course, you've got to get the boat out there well in advance of things getting bad.

[Beta Don]

After 10 years of taking our 34' sailboat up the river for every hurricane scare (every marina around here requires EVERY boat to be removed from the marina anytime there is a hurricane warning . . . . they contact you to remind you when it's just a hurricane watch) I promised the wife if we bought another boat it would be something which fit on a trailer just for that reason - Probably my #1 reason for selecting an A27 in the first place

We bought the A27 and the first project was . . . . to build a trailer for it!

I agree with Jay though - If for some reason I didn't own a trailer, a mooring would be the next best thing . . . . but we don't have any of those around here either. The big advantage to a mooring is that the boat aligns itself to the wind which gives it the minimum resistance. That's the safest option if you want to keep it from getting damaged

In a slip you've got to leave the lines loose enough for the water to rise several feet and if the lines are loose enough for that, it will most likely rub up against something when the wind catches it broadside. It's hard to keep a boat in a slip without it getting damaged during any sort of blow . . . . remember what your neighbor's boat looked like. A storm is most likely what caused all of that damage. Pretty sure you would be liable for any damage your boat does to anyone else's property - Make sure you're insured for that!

There are always a few boats which don't get removed from the marina before the storm and they usually aren't still in their slips after the storm has passed. Last time we had a couple washed up on a nearby island and what was left of a couple others sitting atop the concrete walkways - Those owners go on a list of people the marina will no longer rent slips to

Don

[rnummi]

Yikes. Ok let me rephrase. Marina lets you keep your boat in the slip during hurricane. There are no hidy holes anywhere nearby. I don't have a trailer.... Now what? I'm doomed?

[JT48348]

I've had a boat through a hurricane on a mooring and a slip. I would not do either with an Albin 27 due to the way the deck fittings are secured at manufacture. If you haven't re-done ur deck fittings you have one choice. Take it out of the water.

Pay to have it hauled and blocked. Or put it on a trailer

[rnummi]

Understood. The next question would be "when". A great example is the current weather forming off Yucatan. It says mostly rain and high winds heading to Tampa. Not a TS or a Hurricane. I guess I'm wondering when do you decide it's coming out? When hit probability gets to 85% as a designated Hurricane. Not being a weather guesser, coneceivably You could be yanking it out 2-3 times a year down here. You wait to late and the mob is lined up for a pull. All that being said,, JT tell me how you had it tied up in the slip... Spiderweb? Straight doubled (or tripled) lines to cleats?

[Beta Don]

Yikes. Ok let me rephrase. Marina lets you keep your boat in the slip during hurricane. There are no hidy holes anywhere nearby. I don't have a trailer.... Now what? I'm doomed?

You have an excellent, very well protected mooring field adjacent to the marina. That's where I'd go a couple days before the storm - I might go there today, before it fills up with like minded folks

Don

[DesertAlbin736]

I probably know least of any about this, but looking at the last picture you posted where it shows the power cord, I'd maybe suggest rigging some stout fender boards to help stand off those pilings & use some of those big basketball fenders if you're going to stay in the slip.

And of course make sure your bilge pump strainers are all cleaned out & your batteries good & charged up & have an automatic bilge pump switch. And like others have said said, double up lines with good chafe protection.

Fender board, Chincoteague.jpg

Last thing you want is to come back after the storm & see something like this:

[smacksman]

I went through Sandy at Cape May in 2012 with a 40 year old sailboat. Only a Cat 1 hurricane with 90mph winds but a 10 foot storm surge.
They had no cradles for my boat so we had to stay in my slip. Two piles aft and shore cleats forward and a floating finger alongside.
I also worried about my cleats so took a line right round the stern and tied the mooring lines to that loop. Bow lines went from the mast.
Modern ropes are strong - a single half inch nylon line can pick up an Albin27 easily. However, chafe is the big problem.
We get big winds in the UK too and a valuable item is the car tyre and/or innertube. They are very strong and float and take up snatch loads. A tyre tied in half way of a dock line will act as a 'rubber band' and take up snatch loads and the weight will also act like an anchor 'angel', an added weight to an anchor line to improve the catenary of the chain.
A car tyre dropped over the pile will float up as the storm surge rises keeping your lines tight.
If you have suspect neighbours then a row of car tyres all round is cheap protection.
Sandy wrecked a lot of boats ashore as the storm surge floated them off their cradles and piled them up.
Roger.