It’s often the case with boats that the worst is not immediately apparent, and this has proven true with the November 22/23 snow and wind storm that pounded the North Sound. The day after was grim enough, with boats missing from the mooring field off Port Hadlock, and others smashed up against their neighbors or the marina breakwater. The carnage visible at first light was just the beginning, though. As the day wore on, the bad news piled up.
On the bank below the house, inaccessible at high tide with the waves up, a sixteen or eighteen footer was washed up, tangled in trees and rocks. The hull, at least, seems to be intact.
Out past that wreck, evidence began to accumulate that something worse had happened to something larger. A Coast Guard cutter, the Cuttyhunk, showed up and dispatched a tender in toward the marina. An ominous parade of debris marched past toward shore… a section of cabin trunk, an intact hatch, random bits of splintered wood. A float that I had mistaken for a drifting mooring ball turned out to be a scotchman, which in turn was still attached to a section of lifeline… which itself was still attached to a line of stanchions. The sailboat that we had noticed was missing from it’s mooring ball had broken up and sunk completely.
When the waves had died down enough, Vessel Assist ducked out to the outside of the breakwater and got a line on the catamaran that had been bashed up there most of the night. A parade of helpful folks made their way across a narrow, icy plank between the docks and the breakwater and began to salvage items from the boats and debris remaining there.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7fixEDBBc[/youtube]
Across the bay, during the morning we had seen a fishing vessel moored next to a tugboat owned by a family friend drift downwind and finally manage to back into the wind and waves and tie up at the pier again. Today we got the rest of the story, as my stepfather called to tell us that the friend with the tug might need to come by to borrow a ladder… the fishing vessel had torn loose and stove in the tug’s bow (planking that had been painstakingly replaced only a couple years ago). There was three feet of water in the engine room by the time they got down to check on the boat.
Today has been about picking up the pieces… literally, in some cases. Vessel Assist was out and busy again after a long day out yesterday, and defying a high tide, folks were down working at getting the eighteen footer on the bank untangled and ready to refloat. The tug steamed north to the boatyard in Port Townsend and is up on blocks tonight, waiting for an insurance surveyor. The final toll is at least one sunk, four or five aground or severely damaged. But this was only the second big storm in a winter that promises to be filled with them.
That same storm hit Friday Harbor pretty hard. I had just launched my pride and joy in early October and was now moored at the Port’s Spring Street Landing. What I didn’t realize is that Spring Street isn’t protected by the massive Corp of Engineers breakwater. With winds peaking at 60+ MPH, things got a little hairy. One boat close to me broke lose. I called the owner who was in Minnesota at the time….so I organized a rescue party and got the boat back to where it was moored.
Having lived in the islands many years, I recall the winter storm of 1989. Called the Artic Express, we had winds over 100 mph and temps in the teens. There was a lot of damage in the islands and we were without electricity for eight days.
I recall that in that storm, Port Hadlock really got pounded. Lots of damage and lost boats. I guess the moral of the story is that if there is a Nor-easter predicted…batten down the hatches at Port Hadlock!
Having watched the outcome of two season’s worth of storms here in Hadlock now, and having very narrowly avoided my own boat being swept ashore there, I am now a little surprised that getting the heck out of Hadlock when a northerly is forecast has not entered into the conventional wisdom of the Puget Sound sailor. I don’t think I’d batten anything down… just move!
On the whole, Port Townsend is a well-protected body of water… you just have to be at the right end of it. It’s five miles from Hadlock up to Glen Cove, which is quite calm in a northerly. Similiarly, Hadlock is rock solid during southerlies. I’m surprised I don’t see more people move back and forth in response to forecasts. At the very least, you could duck out through the Cut and get into Oak Bay to avoid the worst of it.