Floated off the stands

[sww914]

Originally Posted by GaryHLucas

So you might have a couple hundred thousand tied up in your boat. You have 4 or 5 days warning that the hurricane of the century might be coming, and you throw you hands up and say "Oh well!? I'll bet your house is underwater ($ not H20) and that is somebody else's fault too.

My boat is the hole in the water from hell, it's been on hte hard for the past 4 years as I fix one disaster after another with it. I am barely keeping up with the normal deterioration. Plenty of days when a Sawzall and a dumpster makes more sense than working on it. I have liability insurance, but no coverage on the boat itself. In it's current state they'd total it for sure and give me a couple hundred bucks at best.

That doesn't mean I don't worry about my boat floating into your mega yacht and holing it. Nor does it mean I want to lose the hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars I've invested, even though you can't see that looking at her.

So this past Saturday my 8 year grandson tied her down properly. Four big screw anchors into the ground and 3" nylon straps over the boat. A line from the stern cleat to a post in the ground as well. It held, despite the pile of other boats stacked up against her.

Of course they are lucky too. I don't see any damage to my boat, and I have before and after pictures. So if your boat damaged my boat because you said "Oh Well" then my lawyer is going to earn his keep even if you don't have insurance like I do.

The OP is worried about his boat. You should try a little kindness.
You got lucky.

[AndreasNYC]

Oh I get it now
he was taking a dig at me.

Just for the record I DID exactly what the people at my yard said was the safest thing to do, which was haul the boat out.

The boat was in fact already hauled out over a week before the storm because that was my plan for the season.

So I am really not sure what I did wrong there.

In the end you can only make the best preparation you can think of and hope for the best.

Oh well, does not indicate I don't care, it just indicates it is best to take a calm approach to circumstances you can not change...

the internet, its full of mean people

Andreas

[kd3pc]

Originally Posted by AndreasNYC

Oh I get it now
he was taking a dig at me.

Just for the record I DID exactly what the people at my yard said was the safest thing to do, which was haul the boat out.

The boat was in fact already hauled out over a week before the storm because that was my plan for the season.

So I am really not sure what I did wrong there.

In the end you can only make the best preparation you can think of and hope for the best.

Oh well, does not indicate I don't care, it just indicates it is best to take a calm approach to circumstances you can not change...

the internet, its full of mean people

Andreas

Andreas,

you did the best you could, given the circumstances. the idea that you can build a cradle, attach it to the boat, and that it would not affect the buoyancy of the boat is internet madness at it's finest.....even if there were some miraculous material to build it from, how do you control where and when the boat sits back down.

I have seen moored boats break their mooring anchor and settle in the mud, whilst a slipped boat, not a mile away settled back down directly atop a piling with a 20" diameter 12" tall copper point on it, one was undamaged (mooring) the other constructive loss, as there was simply no way to remove it from the impaling without destroying the dock.

You do the best you can to prepare, you did; you have adequate insurance in case; and you take your self back to safe a place as you can find.

best of luck

[blt2ski]

Someone would have had to do as they do in the Caribbean islands. they haul out, have some sort of place to ut the boats on the hard, and secure them via on land or in the ground, such that they will not float away. i also believe since they get hit a lot, they have land that is high enough to do this, so storm surges do not worry them.

Reality is, the OP did the best he could, marina as well. If they were hit by monthly storms like this, they would ALL have a different setup to handle these monthly issues during the season.

We will all hope that the boat is in repairable decent shape after what happened back there.

Marty

[chef2sail]

the internet, its full of mean people

Andreas

Yes, and some of the ones here excercise their rights quite frequently with abandon

Sorry to hear what happened to you., You did all you could, bu mother nature sometimes wins out over the best laid plans. Hopefully you will recover easily and the damage is not too bad. Good luck and godspeed.

Dave

[CalebD]

Andreus,
You did everything that a reasonable person would have done. All you can do now is wait and see how it works out and hope for the best outcome.

I will say that I watched the storm surge on the Hudson roll in 2 blocks from the river. It came in very silently and smoothly, like the movie "The Blob". The flood waters also receded quickly but gently. The unprecedented storm surge knocked parts of NYC back to the dark ages for several days. Electricity and internet are back today after 5 days of candle light dinners.

I had also considered hauling my boat out, 30 miles north of Liberty Landing. I'm glad I did not as the same thing happened in Stony Point where many boats were knocked over that had been hauled out. About two thirds (2/3) of the moored boats in Nyack slipped their moorings. We were part of the lucky one third that survived with mooring tackle in tact.

It is going to take Liberty Landing some time to untangle the mess.

We are just lucky to not have called Breezy Point or the Rockaways (or Jersey shore) home.

[hellosailor]

Andreas, you followed the conventional wisdom and usually that would have been right. In fact, it still is right except someone forgot to ask "How high will the storm surge be?" and if you are parked 5'ASL with a 10-11' storm surge coming...that's useless.

This is not the only "oops" from this storm nor is it the biggest one, so don't kick yourself too hard.

The best way to ride out something with that big a surge, IMO, would be either tied to screw anchors in sheltered water, or tied alongside a floating dock which had enough pylon height to ensure the dock wouldn't float off the pylons. And you'd have a good time trying to find a dock that could float up an EXTRA dozen feet without breaking free of them. Likewise, a snowball's chance in hell of finding a good sheltered spot to anchor/moor the boat just for the storm.

So floating off the jackstands, playing bumper cars and then coming aground again, might have been the least risky way to go with a bad situation.

Unless the boatyard has been formally condemned and placed off limits by a government agency, you should be able to ask the operators when and how you can arrange to enter with an escort, if needed, to assess the damage. And gently remind them that if you are not allowed to assess and MITIGATE damage, that you will have to hold them responsible for any FURTHER damage that occurs. That just might motivate them a bit. Hardhat, work boots, safety gear, idiot repellant...Yeah, sure. Proper attire is always appropriate but telling folks they can't come in at all? Nuh-uh.

There's already been way too much CYA and politicking and pretending going on by powers on high. All the pretending is just endangering people, while proper aid is not being brought in on the scope it needs to be.

[GaryHLucas]

I see I mis-typed. Left out "and I" after grandson.

My reference to couple of hundred thousand was not about the OPs boat, it was about the pile of boats around mine, some that certainly cost that much.

My straps and anchors were sized to hold the boat down even if the water reached the cockpit and flooded her. If it got that deep and she floated and left town it would have been a total loss. Tied down this way might have gotten the boat flooded, but that would be quick to drain out.

Tall cradles along with anchors and tie down straps are a great idea. My boat is under repair with the keel off, so some options were not available at the time.

There is nothing you can do that will absolutely guarantee that your boat won't be damaged. Look at the pictures from the storm. How many boats can you count that would not be damaged if they had simply been tied down? You can't, because there are just too many to count! How many didn't move and were smashed to bits? I'd bet that is just a handful. So for the $200 I spent on anchors and straps we could have saved maybe 98% of the boats in the photos?

Gary H. Lucas

[GaryHLucas]

Originally Posted by AndreasNYC

Oh I get it now
he was taking a dig at me.

Just for the record I DID exactly what the people at my yard said was the safest thing to do, which was haul the boat out.

The boat was in fact already hauled out over a week before the storm because that was my plan for the season.

So I am really not sure what I did wrong there.

In the end you can only make the best preparation you can think of and hope for the best.

Oh well, does not indicate I don't care, it just indicates it is best to take a calm approach to circumstances you can not change...

the internet, its full of mean people

Andreas

Andreas,
I see you thought I was aiming a dig at you. I assure that was not my intent. You'll notice I use my real name, and if you google me you'll find that I've been on the Internet a very long time, and don't ever attack people, or engage in flaming people. I always try to help, not hurt.

I apologize for the misunderstanding.

Gary H. Lucas

[Sal Paradise]

II'm in the hudson. The thing that strikes me is - if an owner knew the surge was going to b 10'-12' and the marina elevation is less than that, then isn't it a huge mistake to haul out We hauled out to much higher elevation, so no worries there, then came back and found the boats on the dock and moorings did fine.