6.5 knots under bare poles. Wind speed?

[SycloneDriver]

On July 4th this year we got caught in a storm. It was my fault for not checking the weather and thinking it wasn't going to that bad. We had three boats from our club at a fireworks disply with some aircraft preforming for our enjoyment. The weather was perfect, at the time. I had heard some of the others talking about the potential for a bad storm. I bought a little extra fuel so I wouldn't have to worry about that if I had to run home. We got together and decided to make a run for it. One of the boats wouldn't start and required a tow. I was a few minutes ahead of the others. It was several hours back to the club. I made about half way back before the weather hit. It was bad enough that we, the wife and I, put on our life jackets and had a discussion about what to do if the worst happened. The wind and lightning was incredible. The lightning bothered me more than I expected, it was completely out of my control. As we were getting close to the club heading dead down wind with no sails up and the motor at high idle, I noticed that we were going 6.5 knots. I normally don't see speeds like that. How fast do you think the wind was blowing to push a 2008 Beneteau Oceanis 31 with bare poles at 6.5kt?

We ended up having to turn around and motor away from the club for about 15 minutes. The stom started to settle down and then we turn around and quickly docked. The others were a few minutes behind us and made it safely back to the docks.

 

[Project_Mayhem]

Was there a current?

 

[rgranger]

Glad it worked out. Sounds scary.

 

[CrispyCringle]

I got into a storm front like that once. We were on a lake on our (at the time) H23.5 and a big black and green late afternoon summer storm rolled in. It lasted about 15-20 minutes, then turned into a gentle shower. Incredible wind, and the rain felt like needles. It was our first encounter of weather like that. Going back to the marina it was a head wind and I could see as far as the bow. As the rain let up a little I had about a dozen jet skiers slowly pass me by. Teenagers, so they all thought it was a hoot. When we turned abeam the wind to go into the dock a strong gust put the rail in the water. Eye opening to say the least, since the sails were stowed. Turning into the slip was downwind. It took full reverse to hold position and not ram into the dock resulting in a second attempt. Looking back on it, I should have known it was just the frontal passage and in all likelihood would pass in several minutes. If Id just waited it out in open water then going into the dock would have been much less harrowing. Living and learning.

 

[dlochner]

Years ago I was in a Tanzer 22 on a beam reach with the main sail luffing doing about 6 knots in a harbor with not much chop. The wind was in the mid 30s with higher gusts into the 40s. It had calmed down from an hour or so earlier when it was in the 40s gusting to mid 50s with seas running better than 10 feet.

 

[SycloneDriver]

Was there a current?

In land lake. Zero current.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Your Oceanis 31 has a fairly shallow hull with a fin keel, if you're on a lake, no natural current, but it is typical for the wind driven surface current to move at about 1% of the wind speed from a storm, depending on how long the winds pushed across the water. That would mean an Oceanis 31 is more subject to the surface current than a full keel deeper hull, so mostly the wind was pushing you while the current contributed somewhere in the neighborhood of a third of a knot (35 knot winds).

-Will

 

[SycloneDriver]

Your Oceanis 31 has a fairly shallow hull with a fin keel, if you're on a lake, no natural current, but it is typical for the wind driven surface current to move at about 1% of the wind speed from a storm, depending on how long the winds pushed across the water. That would mean an Oceanis 31 is more subject to the surface current than a full keel deeper hull, so mostly the wind was pushing you while the current contributed somewhere in the neighborhood of a third of a knot (35 knot winds).

-Will

Seems reasonable. I did a little digging through some weather history. The winds near my location were mid 20s gusting to mid 30s. I'm telling you it felt like 30 gusting to 60. I can't believe it was only gusting to 35.
That same set of storms generated gusts of 92 and 100mph several hours drive from us.
That was an exciting day. I'm very grateful we survived with no damage. I also learned several lessons first hand. Gained some confidence too.

 

[PaulK]

We saw a squall coming in from Wisconsin one sunny afternoon during a CHI-MAC race aboard a Pearson 37. Huge black cloud with lightning and thunder. We took our sails down as it approached. It started with a half inch of hail falling on the deck. The hail disappeared about 20 seconds later when the wind hit. I watched the speedo and the anemometer to see what was happening. We were doing 8 knots dead downwind with the anemometer reading 50. Luckily it was pushing us towards the finish line. Unluckily it died after about ten minutes. To get a Beneteau 31 up to six and a half knots it must have been blowing pretty hard.