The Thunderstorm!

Gee wrote about our weather adventures in Weather Adventures. It was the most powerful storm I have ever experienced on the water. Peggy and I had previously been hit in a Chesapeake Thunderstorm many years ago in which we couldn't see the instruments. I estimated that storm to be about 50 kn winds, because the rain felt like riding a motorcycle in the rain at about that speed. The rain has a bit of sting to it at that speed.

In our encounter in LUX, we could see it coming, so we battened down everything. Mike was driving. We put on foul weather gear (well, except Mike, who doesn't mind heat and cold so much). Mike should have put on his PFD and we should have all clipped into the jack lines. We were never at risk, but you never know what is going to happen that might slew the boat around, causing a broach that throws you across the boat.

I told Mike that we would continue on our course and that if things became dicy, we'd run with the storm. Running with a storm means that you're in the storm longer, but the apparent wind is less and riding down the face of the waves is easier on the boat than plowing into them. It didn't take long before the wind started lifting the dinghy on the bow. Our dinghy was tied down aft of the tramp, so wind had to work a bit harder to get under it. But it did and after it lifted the third time, I told Mike to turn and run with it. The waves were only about three feet at the time, so LUX did great in the turn. We had both motors going and were able to execute the turn quickly.

The wind came up to about 35-40 kn and seemed to stabilize and even reduced. I thought that perhaps we were through the worst. But then the wind suddenly picked up substantially. Visibility was down to about 50 yards. Interesting, since there were several shrimpers around the area. We weren't headed for any of them at the last time we could see, so we kept our fingers crossed and a good lookout ahead.

Since LUX has a nice hardtop bimini, Mike was able to watch the instruments and saw 65 kn on the anemometer. We were doing about 7.5 kn down the waves at that point, so we came up with 72 kn as the wind speed in the burst. Here's what it looked like out of the salon doors after the wind abated to about 35 kn.

After the Storm