Warren Holybee
Active Member
I'm in a hotel taking shelter from a hurricane, which among other things means that I have Internet.
I have had a great 4 weeks in Hawaii. Consequently a friend was on a delivery from Tahiti to San Francisco, and diverted to Hawaii. So we spent time doing some things.
As for the Hurricane, I got lucky enough to be here for the first major hurricane to threaten Hawaii in nearly 30 years.
It looks like there is a strong chance the Hurricane will mostly miss Oahu. There was not a direct hit to any of the Islands. The Big Island got hit hard with rain and has massive flooding. Maui has had some major fires. But the Hurricane has been downgraded from a 5 to a 1, and is expected to make a hard turn to the west before it gets to Oahu.
Very few boaters here did any prep at all. A few opened(?) all the ports(do they want there boat to sink?), a few removed biminis, and 3 or four removed headsails. I removed all canvas, all sails, my solar, everything I could unbolt from the pulpits, my spinnaker pole, dinghy, wrapped my main halyard around the mast, and removed the other halyards. Total of 8 heavy dock lines, loose enough to handle as much surge as possible without allowing my boat to smash into the dock or another boat. I think I could handle 6' of surge. The dock is a concrete pier that doesn't float, so it should be solid.
But I expect none of that will matter, as I think all we will get is lots and lots of rain, and maybe low tropical storm force winds. That is expected tomorrow.
John, if things go horribly bad, I might be interested in your boat
I have had a great 4 weeks in Hawaii. Consequently a friend was on a delivery from Tahiti to San Francisco, and diverted to Hawaii. So we spent time doing some things.
As for the Hurricane, I got lucky enough to be here for the first major hurricane to threaten Hawaii in nearly 30 years.
It looks like there is a strong chance the Hurricane will mostly miss Oahu. There was not a direct hit to any of the Islands. The Big Island got hit hard with rain and has massive flooding. Maui has had some major fires. But the Hurricane has been downgraded from a 5 to a 1, and is expected to make a hard turn to the west before it gets to Oahu.
Very few boaters here did any prep at all. A few opened(?) all the ports(do they want there boat to sink?), a few removed biminis, and 3 or four removed headsails. I removed all canvas, all sails, my solar, everything I could unbolt from the pulpits, my spinnaker pole, dinghy, wrapped my main halyard around the mast, and removed the other halyards. Total of 8 heavy dock lines, loose enough to handle as much surge as possible without allowing my boat to smash into the dock or another boat. I think I could handle 6' of surge. The dock is a concrete pier that doesn't float, so it should be solid.
But I expect none of that will matter, as I think all we will get is lots and lots of rain, and maybe low tropical storm force winds. That is expected tomorrow.
John, if things go horribly bad, I might be interested in your boat
