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Our little puddle at Smith Mountain Lake is well known for its "lack of wind" more than anything else.
I sail a C&C 32 and frankly it was designed for the heavier airs of the Great Lakes, so the light air around here can sometimes be quite frustrating (although the C&C will go in light air). Just the same I missed Saturday sailing (Halloween) and it was really nice 13-15 knots wind, and desperately wanted to get out on the water on 11/1. I typically catch the forecast last thing at night from the local station but when predicting my sailing windows, I usually use NOAA and their point forecast for Smith Mountain Lake. NOAA has a nice hour by hour precip, wind etc, and is typically quite good.
The local weatherman was pretty convinced that we'd go from rainy morning to beautiful sunshine and from nearly no wind to gusts over 50mph over a period of about 12 hours starting at 8am. NOAA showed hourly forecasts with winds starting at 5mph and drizzle, changing to 13mph getting sunny, with max gusts to 20mph, if the ladder forecast was accurate, it'd be a great sailing day.
I'm pretty big on knowing wind speeds by watching the water, but I also watch other boats, yeah bad habit if you are on open water, but for lake sailing it works. I usually combine that data to predict my trim but also to keep an eye out for puffs and such (mostly trim).
While I went out sailing was pretty nice, winds were probably 8-10 knots, sun was just coming out and temp rose to 65 degrees, nice T-shirt sailing for November (see attached).
So I came down through the main confluence of the Lake and took a turn up towards Pelican point. This river feeder runs mostly east/west. I came around an "Christmas Tree island" as winds were southwest as it stood, and things started to get quite light (granted I was in the shadow of the island).
I saw what I thought was a fellow C&C owner a 29, in the distance. He always sails it quite well, and I enjoy keeping pace with him... As it turn out it wasn't, but I headed towards him anyway under that impression.
I was doing maybe 3 knots with full 155 and mainsail at the time.
In the distance I could see the little navy blue boat chugging along nice is slightly more wind than me, probably 10 knots of wind, heeled at maybe 15 degrees.
I looked down at a soda I was drinking and to port for probably 10-15 seconds, then back up the lake and I see his boat all the way over probably spilling water in cockpit, and he's turned DOWN in the wind (which is odd in itself), and has released his sails.. His genoa is flapping like a flag, and his mainsail is all the way eased against the spreaders, hes gone from a course due west and probably a close reach, to nearly north towards land, and on a broad reach. He's not having a problem (yet) but it doesn't look comfortable. I reach up and furl my headsail some... still only got about 8-10 knots of wind. I can see the puff coming at me now, and slight whitecaps following it.
I see him take another hard puff and this time he rounds up, and immediately back down again (the process was so wild I am not sure if he rounded up, and gybed, or just had lost control). Now I resolve to fire up the motor, and furl the headsail all the way... now I'm heeling at about 15 degrees, my genoa tail flapping and I can see his first puff is nearly on me... I get my headsail in JUST in time (a tiny flag of clew still sticking out)... and get hammered over to about 35 degrees. I drop the traveler and fire the engine up.
By the time I get in gear, throttle up, I'm well into his second puff, I'm hard still, but steering (love a deep rudder and fin keel). I resolve now to motor up to him and turn into the cove now behind the wind which has turned soundly to the West now. Clouds have come in... I'm dropping mainsail.
I get up there to see this:
Picture shows I have a bit of heel going, but not crazy, but I'm spilling a lot of wind, and its basically a reach for me mainsail only... winds here are maybe 25 knots. I duck directly in that cove you see ahead, and douse main.
Now I am not telling this story to shame the skipper. Quite the contrary I am astonished JUST how fast we went from lovely sail to snotty on our little lake (without a thunderstorm). I won't pick the boat make and model out, intentionally, but will say its a 24-26 foot boat with probably a 9.9 outboard (plenty for the lake). Again I tell this story more to alert people that lake sailing has its "interesting sails" as well.
When I turned around to motor past the skipper, winds were coming up pretty good now. I yelled over if he was OK... I asked if I should reach out to Sea Tow (which does a great job on our lake). I draw probably 2 more feet than he does so pulling him off wasn't something I'd be able to do. He was more than just hard aground he was now stuck at 20 degrees plus with keel in mud, probably 2-3 feet of water. He commented that he wanted to wait until the winds died down (keep in mind forecast was for winds to build throughout the day, and sustain for another 24 hours). He was very matter of fact about it and very calm. Meanwhile I see there are 4 people aboard, and 2 have lifejackets on, and he and another were getting theirs on. I'm getting chilly now. I throw on the wheel pilot, and grab both my coat and my harness/inflatable vest.
I attempted to hail Sea tow (despite his saying he'd wait), but I have a rail mounted antenna and I know base for them is roughly 10 miles as the crow flies. I figured I'd do a basic notification of issue about it. No response (figured I'd regret not running that antenna aloft).
I was having issues with my mainsail flapping a bit as I haphazardly secured it, so I motored across the narrow channel to a clearer spot to broadcast with VHF if and also less wind (shadow) to secure sail.
I secured sail and motored quickly back to see how he was doing... took this quick picture as I came back around... and winds were up significantly...
Doesn't look like much but I figure winds were well over 30 at this point. Those waves I know look tiny, but probably pushing 2-3 feet at times, but just choppy. That's important when you see this next picture...
You'll note he's kicked up quite a mud storm (good not rocks)... boat has also bounced to leeward. Part of me wondered why he didn't raise a little sail and sit lowside to induce heel in an attempt to bounce off.
I made a few buzzes back and forth and he yelled over that he had called Sea Tow. I wasn't sure if he said called or was asking me to call, so I attempted to hail them again, this time more successfully. They were none to pleased with the report as apparently he was telling me he had CALLED not asking me to call (ie: hail). They had said that it may be 20 minutes before they arrive - at that point I resolved to stick around until they do.
Wasn't but a few moments later winds piped up yet again, this time over 40 (sorry no pictures), and bringing with it some real steep chop... Watched the boat bounce twice and then pop right off. He fired up his outboard, and rocketed off into the cove (assuming where he lives/berths).
Lots of things I can say about this trip. One is I'm glad I was expecting some kind of crazy winds. Another is, is it typical for forecasts locally to be so dramatically different? Do you favor the local forecasters over NOAA for something Like this? If I happened to get aground in the way this person did, I would hope to remain as calm, but I think I would have attempted to use heeling to get off. There was plenty of wind to take advantage of to coax a way out of it, hopefully without pounding that likely happened from the 1-3 foot waves. Wonder what others would think.
For myself... was there more I could do to assist? Was I a nuisance for hanging around until additional help arrived? I sail solo so my efficiency in helping I am sure would have been minimal even if I could have reached with a tow line, but I'm sure I'd have tried if he weren't more than 50feet from safe depth of water for me, I could barely get close enough to yell over.
If you were the skipper aground like that, what would be your post accident inspections of the boat... It was mud keep in mind. I know the obvious thing is to avoid it happening in the first place, and I try to be attentive, but given it went from 15 knots to 30 knots in probably under a minute, I can see how things degraded quite quickly. If you let you guard down it would be easy to do (I could see it happen to me during a run to the head).
I sail a C&C 32 and frankly it was designed for the heavier airs of the Great Lakes, so the light air around here can sometimes be quite frustrating (although the C&C will go in light air). Just the same I missed Saturday sailing (Halloween) and it was really nice 13-15 knots wind, and desperately wanted to get out on the water on 11/1. I typically catch the forecast last thing at night from the local station but when predicting my sailing windows, I usually use NOAA and their point forecast for Smith Mountain Lake. NOAA has a nice hour by hour precip, wind etc, and is typically quite good.
The local weatherman was pretty convinced that we'd go from rainy morning to beautiful sunshine and from nearly no wind to gusts over 50mph over a period of about 12 hours starting at 8am. NOAA showed hourly forecasts with winds starting at 5mph and drizzle, changing to 13mph getting sunny, with max gusts to 20mph, if the ladder forecast was accurate, it'd be a great sailing day.
I'm pretty big on knowing wind speeds by watching the water, but I also watch other boats, yeah bad habit if you are on open water, but for lake sailing it works. I usually combine that data to predict my trim but also to keep an eye out for puffs and such (mostly trim).
While I went out sailing was pretty nice, winds were probably 8-10 knots, sun was just coming out and temp rose to 65 degrees, nice T-shirt sailing for November (see attached).
So I came down through the main confluence of the Lake and took a turn up towards Pelican point. This river feeder runs mostly east/west. I came around an "Christmas Tree island" as winds were southwest as it stood, and things started to get quite light (granted I was in the shadow of the island).
I saw what I thought was a fellow C&C owner a 29, in the distance. He always sails it quite well, and I enjoy keeping pace with him... As it turn out it wasn't, but I headed towards him anyway under that impression.
I was doing maybe 3 knots with full 155 and mainsail at the time.
In the distance I could see the little navy blue boat chugging along nice is slightly more wind than me, probably 10 knots of wind, heeled at maybe 15 degrees.
I looked down at a soda I was drinking and to port for probably 10-15 seconds, then back up the lake and I see his boat all the way over probably spilling water in cockpit, and he's turned DOWN in the wind (which is odd in itself), and has released his sails.. His genoa is flapping like a flag, and his mainsail is all the way eased against the spreaders, hes gone from a course due west and probably a close reach, to nearly north towards land, and on a broad reach. He's not having a problem (yet) but it doesn't look comfortable. I reach up and furl my headsail some... still only got about 8-10 knots of wind. I can see the puff coming at me now, and slight whitecaps following it.
I see him take another hard puff and this time he rounds up, and immediately back down again (the process was so wild I am not sure if he rounded up, and gybed, or just had lost control). Now I resolve to fire up the motor, and furl the headsail all the way... now I'm heeling at about 15 degrees, my genoa tail flapping and I can see his first puff is nearly on me... I get my headsail in JUST in time (a tiny flag of clew still sticking out)... and get hammered over to about 35 degrees. I drop the traveler and fire the engine up.
By the time I get in gear, throttle up, I'm well into his second puff, I'm hard still, but steering (love a deep rudder and fin keel). I resolve now to motor up to him and turn into the cove now behind the wind which has turned soundly to the West now. Clouds have come in... I'm dropping mainsail.
I get up there to see this:
Picture shows I have a bit of heel going, but not crazy, but I'm spilling a lot of wind, and its basically a reach for me mainsail only... winds here are maybe 25 knots. I duck directly in that cove you see ahead, and douse main.
Now I am not telling this story to shame the skipper. Quite the contrary I am astonished JUST how fast we went from lovely sail to snotty on our little lake (without a thunderstorm). I won't pick the boat make and model out, intentionally, but will say its a 24-26 foot boat with probably a 9.9 outboard (plenty for the lake). Again I tell this story more to alert people that lake sailing has its "interesting sails" as well.
When I turned around to motor past the skipper, winds were coming up pretty good now. I yelled over if he was OK... I asked if I should reach out to Sea Tow (which does a great job on our lake). I draw probably 2 more feet than he does so pulling him off wasn't something I'd be able to do. He was more than just hard aground he was now stuck at 20 degrees plus with keel in mud, probably 2-3 feet of water. He commented that he wanted to wait until the winds died down (keep in mind forecast was for winds to build throughout the day, and sustain for another 24 hours). He was very matter of fact about it and very calm. Meanwhile I see there are 4 people aboard, and 2 have lifejackets on, and he and another were getting theirs on. I'm getting chilly now. I throw on the wheel pilot, and grab both my coat and my harness/inflatable vest.
I attempted to hail Sea tow (despite his saying he'd wait), but I have a rail mounted antenna and I know base for them is roughly 10 miles as the crow flies. I figured I'd do a basic notification of issue about it. No response (figured I'd regret not running that antenna aloft).
I was having issues with my mainsail flapping a bit as I haphazardly secured it, so I motored across the narrow channel to a clearer spot to broadcast with VHF if and also less wind (shadow) to secure sail.
I secured sail and motored quickly back to see how he was doing... took this quick picture as I came back around... and winds were up significantly...
Doesn't look like much but I figure winds were well over 30 at this point. Those waves I know look tiny, but probably pushing 2-3 feet at times, but just choppy. That's important when you see this next picture...
You'll note he's kicked up quite a mud storm (good not rocks)... boat has also bounced to leeward. Part of me wondered why he didn't raise a little sail and sit lowside to induce heel in an attempt to bounce off.
I made a few buzzes back and forth and he yelled over that he had called Sea Tow. I wasn't sure if he said called or was asking me to call, so I attempted to hail them again, this time more successfully. They were none to pleased with the report as apparently he was telling me he had CALLED not asking me to call (ie: hail). They had said that it may be 20 minutes before they arrive - at that point I resolved to stick around until they do.
Wasn't but a few moments later winds piped up yet again, this time over 40 (sorry no pictures), and bringing with it some real steep chop... Watched the boat bounce twice and then pop right off. He fired up his outboard, and rocketed off into the cove (assuming where he lives/berths).
Lots of things I can say about this trip. One is I'm glad I was expecting some kind of crazy winds. Another is, is it typical for forecasts locally to be so dramatically different? Do you favor the local forecasters over NOAA for something Like this? If I happened to get aground in the way this person did, I would hope to remain as calm, but I think I would have attempted to use heeling to get off. There was plenty of wind to take advantage of to coax a way out of it, hopefully without pounding that likely happened from the 1-3 foot waves. Wonder what others would think.
For myself... was there more I could do to assist? Was I a nuisance for hanging around until additional help arrived? I sail solo so my efficiency in helping I am sure would have been minimal even if I could have reached with a tow line, but I'm sure I'd have tried if he weren't more than 50feet from safe depth of water for me, I could barely get close enough to yell over.
If you were the skipper aground like that, what would be your post accident inspections of the boat... It was mud keep in mind. I know the obvious thing is to avoid it happening in the first place, and I try to be attentive, but given it went from 15 knots to 30 knots in probably under a minute, I can see how things degraded quite quickly. If you let you guard down it would be easy to do (I could see it happen to me during a run to the head).