I don’t know, what do you want to do?

When you start getting email from sailing friends asking what are you going to do about the storm, you take notice. We are up the Hudson river but we’re still quite exposed. Well anchored in decent holding with 100′ of chain out but just the same we’re exposed to anything but a westerly blow which is the direction last weeks intense but short lived storm blew in from.

Marce checked the iPad and yep, it was a monster, covering the entire eastern seaboard. Our options were limited. I don’t know why we couldn’t come up with a marina in the area but we couldn’t and we were told most of the moorings were on the light side. We thought maybe we could run up the river a few miles and find something to hide behind in a South South East blow. We decided to use the Escape Velocity method, which is to wait and see what it’s like in the morning.

We were thrown out of bed in the morning. This storm couldn’t wait to get at us. Instead of 10-15 we were already in the 20 plus range. Time to hunker down and take its best. It never let up. We had constant 30 to 48 kts all day and late into the night. For hours on end we watched the sailboats jump and corkscrew around on their moorings, knowing full well that we were doing the same. Some boats ripped their sail covers and started to unfurl their sails. Equipment like radar domes and antennas were hanging off several boats.

After 4pm the wind and waves intensified and sitting in the drivers seat I would have sworn we were sailing in a blow offshore, not the Hudson River! We registered 50 plus for hours touching 77 briefly! That’s when I noticed a ketch had anchored off our port bow. He must have thought that we knew something that he didn’t. I’m sure he thought that this is nuts but he stuck it out along side us.

Just at the height of all of this we noticed several ambulances converge on the marina that allows us to use their dinghy dock and the tell tale blue lights of the rescue boat fired up. I really wouldn’t want to go out on a night like this. Don’t know the outcome but there were some brave lads in that boat.
Finally heavy rains came, thankfully without the promised tornado, and the winds began to moderate by 9:30pm. By 10:30 pm we were resting at anchor somewhere near our original spot. All is forgiven.

You never want to see this first thing in the morning.

This is the kind of scene that just doesn’t photograph well, but we’re working on it. I guess you could say that’s the view from the back porch.