I would like to have a job where I can be wrong about 40 to 50% of the time and still get paid for it.
Spent the past 2 weeks sailing from St Pete to the Keys and back up. Much of it was a perfect sail. A low front was coming through and I was close to having to get back to work so decisions had to be made about leaving Key West and heading back. Do we wait one more night or just get going and have a more leisurely return, stopping a couple of nights rather than just sailing straight through.
Listened to the weather report, which was a follows. The high in the area will exit with a low coming into the area. Scattered thunder storms expected with winds expected to be 20 to 25. Well we thought no problem. Winds are easily handled by this boat with a reefed main and a reefed jib. As we left winds were light enough we motor sailed with the engine at 1500 rpm and the sails giving as speed of about 6.5 kts. We wanted to stop at Marco Island, but the winds were so low and we were afraid of picking up a crab pot with the screw turning, so we decided to make land fall at Charlotte Harbor where we could see the crab pots while we came in.
Back to the weather service. He is what we got. 18 miles off shore to miss pots past the 10 fathom line. We started to get wind 25 - 30 KTS as expected reffed the main and began to set the jib. Lightening began to flash to the East North and West of us. We knew with lightening comes high winds. Doused the main, and ran on engine alone. This seemed like too much lightening. Maybe we should head back South for a while to let this pass. Too late the lightening is now behind us as well.
There was no light front coming through and these were not scattered thunder storms. We were hit with 40+ kts of wind. 60kt gusts. This went on for between an hour, and an hour and a half. Lightening all around us. Rain so hard we could not see the bow of the boat. All of this at 2:30 AM when it was as dark as possible. How we did not get struck...I guess God loves sailors and fools. That night we were both. We and the boat made it through with nothing more than a good story.
We would not have been there if we would have had an accurate forecast. Why is it these guys get full pay for half a job?
Spent the past 2 weeks sailing from St Pete to the Keys and back up. Much of it was a perfect sail. A low front was coming through and I was close to having to get back to work so decisions had to be made about leaving Key West and heading back. Do we wait one more night or just get going and have a more leisurely return, stopping a couple of nights rather than just sailing straight through.
Listened to the weather report, which was a follows. The high in the area will exit with a low coming into the area. Scattered thunder storms expected with winds expected to be 20 to 25. Well we thought no problem. Winds are easily handled by this boat with a reefed main and a reefed jib. As we left winds were light enough we motor sailed with the engine at 1500 rpm and the sails giving as speed of about 6.5 kts. We wanted to stop at Marco Island, but the winds were so low and we were afraid of picking up a crab pot with the screw turning, so we decided to make land fall at Charlotte Harbor where we could see the crab pots while we came in.
Back to the weather service. He is what we got. 18 miles off shore to miss pots past the 10 fathom line. We started to get wind 25 - 30 KTS as expected reffed the main and began to set the jib. Lightening began to flash to the East North and West of us. We knew with lightening comes high winds. Doused the main, and ran on engine alone. This seemed like too much lightening. Maybe we should head back South for a while to let this pass. Too late the lightening is now behind us as well.
There was no light front coming through and these were not scattered thunder storms. We were hit with 40+ kts of wind. 60kt gusts. This went on for between an hour, and an hour and a half. Lightening all around us. Rain so hard we could not see the bow of the boat. All of this at 2:30 AM when it was as dark as possible. How we did not get struck...I guess God loves sailors and fools. That night we were both. We and the boat made it through with nothing more than a good story.
We would not have been there if we would have had an accurate forecast. Why is it these guys get full pay for half a job?
