Slammed by Hurricane Cleo - Part 2

Episode 2 in guest blogger Hal Weidner's story of his encounter with Hurricane Cleo in 1958...

Cleo came at midnight, slowly at first.

We had gotten used to the off-key cello sounds in the rigging. On the night of the 17^th, the rigging began to shriek and we feared we were in for a real blow. We decided to head So Long up into the waves, button down, and ride her out. This worked for only a few minutes. The waves just rolled over us. For some reason these seas were acting like waves coming ashore on a beach; they curled early and the tops broke off and seemed to fall straight down. We had a mile of water beneath our keel, so this wave pattern was a mystery, unless our leeway’s wake was disturbing the sea.

After we got knocked down and stayed there for several minutes, we began to doubt our strategy — even though we eventually discovered that the dingy had broken out of her chains and was resting, upside down, on the head of the mainmast. We decided to try running off before the wind. I stayed at the helm while Ruddy went below to make repairs. The air was full of water. The wind’s shriek was terrifying.

During any given minute we had dozens of lightening bolts stabbing down around us. They illuminated the chaos. I unlashed the wheel and headed So Long downwind to run off. She took off like a speed boat, throwing up a huge bow wave - perhaps ten feet high. At the helm, I could hear the sound of each following sea as it hit our wake. The roar of the wave began and increased to a sound like Niagara Falls and then as the blue water came down, it began to hiss as well; it slammed down from on high, driving me to my knees, and plastering my chest to the wheel. Sometimes, it knocked me unconscious. These incredible sleigh rides only lasted a few minutes before So Long either veered off course or buried her nose in the back wall of a receding wave. We rolled over numerous times, somersaulted [pitch-poled] and lay over with masts across the water. I spent a lot of time in the water, but the deep trough between waves gave me a quiet pause to clamber back on board. Our masts were too heavy on top and the bare poles were pushing like sails.

We pitch-poled again. A bigger-than-ever wave reached over us further than usual and dropped the sky on us. We went way down under water - still with speed on. When we popped up, our masts where dragging along with us -- becoming battering rams. We went at it with cable-cutters and hatchets cutting our masts free. Ruddy was bleeding from his forehead. He had been pitched headlong while below; I thought he’d been washed overboard.

I was convinced that we would not make it through the storm, so when the first light of day showed us the ragged seascape, I was thankful, but daunted by the prospects of drifting north-by-west towards Greenland in the current — on a floating island. The sea lanes were far to the south of us. We had doubts about our being able to pump forever. The deck was fitted with a lift pump. We pulled up and a column of water spilled off the deck; we pushed her down for a refill. So Long was more than half full of water and we could not make progress. We were both sick from swallowing salt water and now being flipped back and forth because the keel now missed her masts.

We dived into our flooded cabin for cans of food and amused ourselves guessing at its unlabeled contents. We both wore lanyards strung with tools --- including a can-opener. The first can was cream of mushroom and after we spooned it down, we felt better.

Copyright © 2008 by Hal R. Weidner

Tomorrow read part 3 of Hal's story, "Neither one of us dared talk about our probable fate..."

Related Links
So Long
Slammed by Hurricane Cleo Part 1

So Long

So Long, the yacht in the Slammed by Hurricane Cleo story by our guest blogger, Hal Weidner.

As Hal says, "So Long at 32ft was beamy and carried huge baggywrinkles on 5/8 inch stays supporting tree trunks. Her huge rudder looked like it had come from a river barge. She was a heavy-weight."

What Were They Thinking?

What were they thinking?

Yesterday US Sailing issued a press release about the upcoming U.S. Singlehanded Championships for the George O’Day Trophy. As part of the usual PR puff they chose to mention four previous winners of the O'Day including a certain Mr. Brodie Cobb who won the trophy in 1984 and 85.

The problem? Mr. Cobb is currently suspended (by US Sailing) from "participating as either skipper or crew member in any sailing competition in the United States" because of what was euphemistically described by the US Sailing Review Board as an incident involving physical contact between two sailors.

Or if you want the gory details, according to this thread on the Laser Forum, here are some of the "facts found" by the jury who heard this case...

14. Shortly after finishing 180081 (Cobb) tacked to starboard and rammed 164380.

15. The skipper of 180081 pulled the boats together side by side and said to 164380 “didn’t I tell you I was going to beat your ass?”

16. 180081’s skipper got halfway out of his boat and boarded 164380 and started to grab and punch the skipper of 164380, not once but at least twice.

17. The skipper of 164380 asked “What the fuck are you (180081) are doing?”

18. The skipper of 180081 answered as he again attempted to punch the skipper of 164380 with an overhead punch “Don’t you know who I am, you’ve fucked up my regatta.”

19. The skipper of 164380 only put his arms up to defend himself and made no aggressive moves in response to the attack.

Couldn't US Sailing have found a better example of a former O'Day winner to enhance the reputation of the event in their press release?

What were they thinking?

Update: There's also more detail and discussion about the original incident at this thread on the Scuttlebutt Forum.

Slammed by Hurricane Cleo - Part 1

Fifty years ago this month in August 1958, Hurricane Cleo blasted across the North Atlantic. Cleo was the strongest Atlantic hurricane of the 1958 Atlantic hurricane season and remains one of only three Category 5 hurricanes to avoid land in the historical database. Over the next few days, guest blogger Hal Weidner will be telling the true story of his encounter with Cleo ...

I first met So Long in July when she anchored near a yacht club on Long Island Sound. She was unique among the other yachts---a bulldog among greyhounds. So Long at 32ft was beamy and carried huge baggywrinkles on 5/8 inch stays supporting tree trunks. Her huge rudder looked like it had come from a river barge. She was a heavy-weight.

Her owner, a Norwegian named Ruddy, had been trying to sell her, but had no luck. I jumped at the chance of sailing her back to Norway. I had worked at the yacht club for several years to stay near the water. Raised in the Midwest; salt water was love at first sight.

Somewhere in the Caribbean, a cell of hot air was fixing to make a reputation by revving-up to 160mph winds and - in passing - trying to send So Long to the bottom. She got her name: Hurricane Cleo. With 160 mph winds, she went punching-up the middle of the Atlantic. Ships on both sides turned back towards shore to let her pass. But, So Long was dead-centered by Cleo’s path---1,500 miles out of New York and 1,500 miles from England.

So Long had lost her auxiliary engine coming down the East River just as she swept by the UN Building, and at the Brooklyn Navel Yard, her single-sideband radio was pronounced beyond repair - according to a radioman from a nearby destroyer. We had only a radio for getting the time signals from Greenwich. We knew that no rescue would come anyway, so we said a prayer, threw the statue of Liberty a kiss, and headed west for our first stop: Falmouth.

By August 15^th, we were reaching the mid-point of our course in the fan of the Gulf Stream at 45N 44W. There the water glowed, making our wake light-up like a skein of neon tubes. We began to see signs of a hurricane: large ground swells, the moon wore a green ring, and the winds increased to 55mph. It was exhilarating and we made all of 6 knots. We took some confidence from So Long’s past; she had been a North Sea pilot cutter and had oak beams 6x8 inches to best the ice. We liked to think of her as our floating tank. In the middle of the ocean, I suppose, all sailors love their ships.

In the gales we took time to try how So Long lay to the wind. She appeared to ride comfortably with her bow up and her tiller down. She would not, however, lay closer than 55 degrees to the wind. But she liked her storm trysail; so we agreed that this was to be our fallback if we got a real blow. Beside, Joshua Slocum had recommended it.

Copyright © 2008 by Hal R. Weidner

Tomorrow read Part 2 of Hal's Story. "Cleo came at midnight..."

Forty Cents a Week

On Friday, the first day of the Buzzards Bay Regatta, the sea breeze eventually came in from the south-west in early afternoon. The race committee sent us off on a five leg windward-leeward course with each leg approximately a mile long. Three long gut-wrenching flat-out-hiking beats, and two long wave-riding runs.

Those three long beats were fun. Always another sailor close by to race against. I was trying to work the waves upwind and as I jabbed the tiller moving up one wave I heard a loud crack from the back of the boat.

Hmmm. What was that? Maybe the rudder hit something?

All was well for a while but then the tiller started catching on the traveler cleat. How can that be? I finished the race and then leaned over the back of the boat to find out what was going on.

Uh oh. One of the stainless steel brackets holding the rudder head to the lower pintle had broken and then bent. The rudder was still attached to the boat but was loose at its bottom point of connection to the boat. The two mile downwind sail in waves back to the beach was "interesting". At any moment I was expecting to lose control of the rudder. Maybe it would jam to one side and I would be unable to bear off down a wave?

Sheer terror. More terrifying even than Edward's fish taco.

So, after derigging I went over to the race office where there was a helpful lady from the manufacturer who phoned a dealer who promised to bring over a new rudder for me the next morning. Yes, a whole new rudder. Apparently they couldn't sell me the rudder head and pintles separately. Oh well.

Conversation between myself and the lovely Tillerwoman on Saturday evening...

Lovely Tillerwoman: So did you get the thingie you needed this morning?

Myself: Oh yes. But I had to buy a whole new rudder.

Lovely Tillerwoman: Was it expensive?

(Note to readers: Tillerwoman is one of the most frugal women on the planet. She is a genius at shopping. She can find ways of buying almost anything for a fraction of its usual price.)

Myself: Mmmm. Well not much really when you think that the old rudder lasted thirteen years.

Lovely Tillerwoman: So how much?

Myself: Mmmm. Well let's see. Over thirteen years it would be about forty cents a week.

Lovely Tillerwoman: I need a calculator to work that out. But it doesn't sound like much when you put it that way.

I am a very lucky man.

Hidden Law of the Universe

I wrote a couple of weeks ago in Blind Squirrel about how, through superior powers of observation, deep meteorological understanding and outstanding reasoning abilities, I chose the right side of the race course on the first beat and was first sailor to the windward mark against tough competition in a race in our district championship.

This weekend at the Buzzards Bay Regatta I paid the price for that success.

Let's think about this logically. On any given beat, there are three possibilities...

1. it doesn't matter which side of the course you choose
2. it does matter and it's pretty obvious which is the correct side
3. it does matter but it's not clear which side is better.

OK. Now ignore the first category and concentrate on just the second and third categories. If they are all category 3 then just by chance you should make the right guess 50% of the time. Factor in some category 2 races, then isn't it obvious that, statistically speaking, the chance of any reasonably competent sailor choosing the favored side of the course must be more than 50%?

Right?

Wrong!

This weekend I demonstrated to my own satisfaction that the normal laws of logic and statistics don't apply to this issue. There is some hidden law of the universe that roughly speaking says, "For every beat where Tillerman chooses the correct side of the beat, he must pay for it by choosing the wrong side N times, where N=(1 + George Bush's age - Tillerman's age + number of years since Tillerman read a book by Stuart Walker + number of glasses of wine consumed by Tillerman on previous evening). N cannot be less than 3 and could be well over 10.

For example...

On Day 1 of BBR, the wind was swinging around at the start of the day. The race committee tried a start while the wind was in the west and it swung way to the south so they had to postpone the start. It stayed southish for a while, and we got one light air race in.

Then it went west again. Oh no, now it's south-west. No wait. There's a north-westerly coming in. Eventually we got a start off with the wind sorta kinda westerly. I didn't have a great first beat and run so at the start of the second and final beat I had a choice. Right or left. Most of the fleet went left. I figured that, given the earlier push by the north-westerly the wind was just as likely to swing right. And I figured I wouldn't pass many boats by going left so I went right.

Right was wrong. Left was right. Duh. N=1 and counting.

On Day 3 the pattern was similar. Wind swinging all over the place. Two postponed starts. Eventually we got away in a westerly. I had a decent start in clear air about a third of the way down the line from committee boat.

Ahah, I thought. At least I can learn from my own mistakes. This is like race 2 of day 1. The secret of success is to bang the left corner in expectation of the shift to the south-west. Halfway up the beat I look over my shoulder and see that two boats who tacked on to port out of a start at the committee boat are now about half a mile to windward of me. And everyone who started right of me is way ahead of me too. Huge righty. N=2 and counting.

(Actually that race was abandoned but the hidden law of the universe didn't know that was going to happen.)

In race 2 on Day 3, a similar thing happened. The wind had settled in to a consistent direction and a few smart souls like me, blessed with superior wind intuition, hit the left side of the beat. Man, that was a good choice. We were gaining bigtime on the dumb shits that went right and by the top third of the beat it looked like we had gained several hundred yards on them. But then a huge righty came in and the lucky fools on the starboard tack layline were reaching in to the mark. Some of them were actually planing to the windward mark! While we brave band of sailors on the left were struggling to the mark on a massive header in spite of our higher intelligence and advanced decision-making abilities.

N=3 and counting.

See what I mean? I am cursed by the hidden law of the universe. How many more races must go wrong before I get it right again?

Buzzards Bay Regatta 2008

Three days of Laser racing on famous Buzzards Bay.

Breaking a pintle. Ouch.

No Uncrustables this year.

No "Parking Lot Nazi" this year.

Ten races in all kinds of wind.

Meeting some cool new people.

Racing against and hanging out with some old friends.

Learning one of the hidden laws of the universe about wind shifts.

Discovering that I am actually better at some aspects of the game than I used to be.

Lots to blog about including the last race of the regatta which will rank as one of my favorite sailing memories of all time.

Watch this space...

Maps on Monday

Click for larger chart

An alternative map of the United States where each state is named after a country with a similar Gross Domestic Product, courtesy of The Big Picture.

Hmmm.

So California is France, Texas is Canada and Florida is South Korea. Sounds about right.

But wait. What is that state in New England just to the west of New Hampshire, sorry I mean just to the west of Bangladesh? It's the Dominican Republic, now part of New England and therefore part of Laser Class District 7.

That's an in-joke that I'm going to have to explain.

While chilling out over beer and burgers after the Buzzards Bay Regatta this weekend we were joshing with Ari Barshi, owner of the Laser Center in Cabarete in the Dominican Republic, who has been sailing a number of the District 7 (New England) Laser regattas this summer. Not only that, but most of the New England Laser sailors present in the group had also had the pleasure of sailing at clinics and regattas hosted by Ari in Cabarete. So over the third (or was it the fourth) beer someone proposed annexing the DR to D7. Then over the fifth (or maybe the sixth) beer some bright spark suggested holding the District 7 Championship in Cabarete next year. Why not? We might get more than seven entrants that way.

Seems like the map was prophetic. Move over Vermont. Welcome Dominican Republic.

Puzzler

I received this email earlier this week. I am scratching my head as to how to help this guy. Does the boat he is searching for exist? Can anyone help him?

Hi, Help me please !

Is there such a one-person boat ?

Under 11 or even 10 feet long
Hull under 50 lbs
Width under 3 feet
Sail under 30 sq. ft.

Need not be as fast a Laser, but should be able to keep up for a short while in relatively calm weather.

The boat should let me stay dry in street clothes and not getting me cold, when under sail in shallow water near shore, with one hand holding the sheet and the other holding a camcorder for wild life filming.

The boat needs to be able to cross a one-kilometer open water (where big boats are passing) in 20 minutes in cross wind.

In other words I am hoping there is such a light weight, fast sail boat that a small person like me can handle it it alone (with a small car), and launch it anywhere.

Is this a reasonable expectation ? Your comment please !

A Bit of a Yot

On Tuesday I fancied a bit of a yot
As the weather just lately had been awfully hot.
So off to Bristol with my Laser I went.
An hour or two of solo practice was my intent.

I launched at around half past three
Aiming for a good old bash and then back home in time for tea.
First of all I cruised around the Point of Poppasquash
Where, so I have heard, live folk who are terribly posh.

Just round the point there was a trimaran on a mooring
And on the beach nearby a Sunfish - not too alluring.
A dude on the beach gave me a wave
But I didn't get too close - there might be rocks - and I wasn't feeling brave.

So I sailed back into the harbor mouth
Where the wind was more in the west than the south.
I worked on some of my faults in sailing the boat.
I think that in previous posts about them I've wrote.

I practiced rounding a windward mark buoy
Because my technique at this move is messed up and screwy.
And then I worked on my leeward mark rounding
At which my incompetence is totally astounding.

After a while of this kind of stuff
I decided that I had done enough
So towards the beach I headed back
Feeling a bit hungry and ready for a snack.

But then what do you think I did see?
A very joyful sight I'm sure you'd agree.
A bunch of other Lasers were coming out
For a bit of practice too without any doubt.

I'd heard about this group before
These Laser sailors leaving the shore.
On every Tuesday evening they go for a sail.
I expect some guy organizes it by email.

So I joined in with their practice races.
Most of the sailors were familiar faces.
Up and down the wind we raced.
Round and round the buoys we chased.

After an hour or so of this fun
I felt that the wind was almost done.
So back to the beach on my Laser I did glide
Before the wind had totally died.

And then I drove back to my house
Where waiting for me was my beautiful spouse.
Burgers and a beer was Tillerwoman's dinner plan.
I really am a very lucky man.