Image from Andy Simmons www.ans-graphics.com

Tonight the rain came, so did the wind and the lightning and the waves. Mayday, mayday, mayday, my wife, Honey Bunny yelled into the VHF, at least that is what she felt like yelling into the two-way radio. The winds howled and the waves crashed, our little boat tossed around like a crazed bucking bronco. I did a little crashing myself as I tried to stow some items as the storm raged outside, doing a header into the side of the hull. If only we could see out of the portlights. Something, anything at all, between the blinding bolts of lightening, rain and the dark of the moonless night. Perhaps all was to be well, but just as likely perhaps, not.

It was 2 AM and we were as awake as we could be. Only minutes before, I awoke as rain started falling through the the forward hatch, landing on my face. “It’s raining” I said, as I scrambled from the v-berth to batten down the hatches. Within minutes, our first storm at anchor left us wondering what would happen next in our Precision 23 sailboat.

As we contemplated our next move from our perch in the v-berth, Honey Bunny noted how the stern of our sailboat rose and fell which seemed like about eight feet from our vantage point. It was an amazing sight to us. We had never been in conditions like this before and we were wondering how the boat would handle these conditions. We consoled ourselves that the boat would be fine, but what about us? Would we be able to maintain our cool and make the right decisions? In some ways our boat felt like a nice, safe cocoon. However, the reduced visibility outside and the bucking of the boat began to take it’s toll on Honey Bunny and she quickly began to worry. I worried too. My main concern was whether or not the anchor would hold, how much wind and waves could an eight pound Danforth endure?

Of course the lightening which lit the sky constantly, also gave us quite a lot to think about and we tried to reassure ourselves that we would be fine. After all, we had just read an article about lightening that talked about a “cone of safety” for the occupants. However, we also took note that our heads were only inches from the chain plates and if a lightening bolt of 50,000 volts had no trouble leaping from thousands of feet above us to the top of the mast of our sailboat, surely the few inches from the chain plate to our skulls would prove easy enough as well. We moved quickly to the salon, thinking that this crazy ride might be a little safer there, if not more comfortable as well.

All of a sudden a brilliantly bright spotlight began making an arc across the water finally landing on our boat. My wife’s initial thought was that the Coast Guard had been alerted to a boat in distress and was out searching for our bodies. As it turned out, it was one of the neighboring boats shining their spotlight around. This added much to the eeriness of the night as their light passed over our sailboat and shone through the ports and the cracks around the companion way hatch. Were they looking for one of their crew in the tossing sea, or more likely, were they just making sure we were not drifting towards them, hypnotized by the amazing show before them? Peering out the portlights, we were greeted to blinding darkness and equally blinding flashes of lightening which lit the waves and white caps as they raced past our anchored sailboat, along with spray and foam whipped up from the howling winds. With the addition of the spotlight passing by, the scene out side of our boat seemed like it was borrowed from the movie Perfect Storm and it felt like that way to us too.

Earlier that afternoon we had finished re-commissioning our sailboat after taking it from it’s slip for a sailing vacation to Duluth to see the tall ships which were there recently and looked forward upon our return to a pleasant afternoon sail followed by anchoring out for the night at one of our favorite spots, Long Point, on Lake Pepin. The winds were from the south and were expected to remain so for the next two days. We chose the north side of the point with this in mind. If we broke free from our anchor, we had miles of open water behind us. Our only concern was for a band of storms which were to our northwest, some 100 miles away. Typically storms track from west to east or southwest to northeast and we were to the southeast. It seemed to me the storms would pass to the north of us. NOAA radio mentioned something about gusts to 45 mph, but we didn’t give that much thought at the time. Too bad, unbeknown to us, the storms were tracking straight towards us.

Two power boats, large cruisers really, had elected to spend the night at our same anchorage, one to our starboard, also at anchor, the other, pulled up to shore off our bow. Their anchor lights plainly visible to us through our portlights earlier when we went to sleep. Except now of course, with the torrents of rain beating down on our sorry affair, I could only occasionally make out their anchor lights as our boat swung on it’s anchor line. Squinting as hard as I could every thing looked as well as could be expected in these conditions.

Mean while, Honey Bunny was flitting about our small cabin from one side to the other. Lake Pepin is really just a wide spot in the Mississippi River, created by the damming effect of the Chippewa River entering the river on the Wisconsin side. The Chippewa’s delta backs up the Mississippi creating a 21 mile long by 2 1/2 mile wide lake known as Lake Pepin. The reason this is important is because, as part of the Mississippi River, there is a large amount of commercial barge traffic on the river. This is what was on her mind at this time, whether or not we would break free and drift into the main channel. The prospect of being run down in the middle of the night by 27 million pounds of corn or coal and chewed up in twin six foot towboat screws is not on her bucket list. This and the fact that earlier in the year two separate accounts of anchoring misfortune had been related to us by some of our marina neighbors.

The first account was of some fellow boaters who were out for the night and awoke to the realization that their anchor line had snapped in the night and they found themselves adrift. What alerted them to their situation was the fact that their boat was no longer pitching to and fro, but now found themselves rolling broadside to the waves. Fortunately, they discovered their situation in time and motored back to the marina at four o’clock in the morning.

The second case involving a couple who’s anchor broke free while they were ashore, having not let out enough scope for the conditions. Only upon their return in their dingy did they realize their sailboat was missing. It had drifted almost to the far shore before a local marina towboat had gone out to fetch it. These accounts were weighing heavily on her mind as the storm raged on. Later she confessed she was as scared as she had ever been in a thunderstorm. This was her first storm on a boat and my first at night.

Soon I noticed that water was streaming down the port bulkhead, “great” I thought, “now the chain plate is leaking.” Not just a small leak either, water began pooling up on the floor. I grabbed a towel to put at the bottom of the bulkhead to sop up the water as it came down and mopped up the water on the floor with a sponge. This also added to our discomfort and foreboding feeling of our experience. “Whats next” we thought aloud.

At one point we were hit with such a tremendous gust that our sailboat heeled over enough that my wife yelled for me to jump to the high side along with her for fear of tipping over. For two more hours we bounced around like this wondering if we would be OK while peering outside occasionally as best we could. We considered our options. Hold tight or pull up anchor and head for our slip. It seemed to me it would be best to stay put.

To me the idea of trying to weigh anchor in a severe thunderstorm in the black of night and motoring to our marina in these conditions did not seem like a very good idea at all. Honey Bunny agreed and we decided that we would take our chances right where we were not knowing how much longer the storm would last. In retrospect, the boat healing like it did during that particularly large gust was probably our tip that the anchor was not holding anymore and that the sailboat was broadside to the wind.

Finally, the rain let up for a bit and I opened the companion way hatch enough to take a look around. Darn! We are facing the north! The wind had switched 180 degrees on us. Not only that, but we had dragged anchor towards the lee shore. Not good! Now we were on high alert, as we had no interest in crashing into the the shoreline. The beach had trees growing almost to the waters edge and I could imagine the sailboat hitting the shore, leaning over on it’s keel and putting the mast right in the swaying branches of the trees. I did not relish this proposition, so now it was time for a more aggressive assessment of our situation. It was difficult to tell with the dark and rain just how much we might have moved, even so, the other boats seemed far enough away to ensure a degree of safety. Never the less, I wanted to check on the anchor now and take a look around just to make sure and to ease my mind. I donned my foul weather jacket and put on my PFD on over the top, opened the companion way and told my wife to listen for a splash. She told me to be careful and I was. I made my way to the bow and found the anchor holding well, the wind was still going strong, but had let up a bit and the rain had slowed to a steady sprinkling. I let out some more rode to increase the scope never the less.

The cruiser to our starboard was busy resetting their anchor and the previously beached cruiser was now heading off for parts unknown. We, on the other hand, settled back down hoping to get some sleep, happy in the knowledge that we had tested ourselves and our sailboat in some nasty weather and came out no worse for it. When we awoke though we found that we had dragged much farther and much closer to the lee shore than we had suspected in the darkness. We were very lucky the anchor grabbed when it did and in retrospect, that is perhaps why the beached cruiser took off when they did, so as not to get a surprise visitor banging against their hull in the middle of the night. When we pulled anchor in the morning there were two clams stuck on the anchor, wedged in the flukes of our Danforth. We’ve had clams grab right on to the point before, preventing the anchor from sinking properly into the bottom, luckily not this time however.

Happily for us, our exciting night turned out fine. We awoke to a new day, and upon moving to the cockpit for our morning cofee, gave our fellow boaters a knowing nod as if to acknowledge that we were brothers in arms, having persevered through the night. Next time we get caught out on a dark, stormy night like this you can be sure we will be checking to see if the wind switches direction before we decide everything is alright. As the storm passed, the wind switched back to the south just as before and we got some much needed shut eye for a few more hours, at least after rechecking the anchor once again. I read recently that in the school of hard knocks the test comes before the lesson, how true!

By Capt. Puffy

This storm occurred last summer around the middle of July and left a lasting impression on the both of us.