They say that sailing can be hours of enjoyment interrupted by moments of sheer panic. Last week we were out on Barnegat Bay in central New Jersey with some new-to-sailing friends. The weather report had predicted cloudy skies with possible isolated thunderstorms throughout the day. The wind was SW at 20-25 knots with some higher gusts. We sailed and had lunch for a few hours under our 100% jib which kept our 2000 H340 mostly upright and moving along at just under 5 knots. I had just commented to our guests that we had been lucky about the weather when my wife noticed a cloud off to the west that looked darker than the rest and we heard a distant clap of thunder. Rather than anchor and ride it out in the middle of the bay, we decided to head in, doused the sail and started the engine. We put down the central panel on our dodger and stowed all of the items in the cockpit. We were about a mile and a half outside of Forked River, NJ where we keep our boat and the cloud was dead ahead, to our west and coming down the river. When we were less than a mile from the outer channel buoys the cloud raced over us in the form of a white-out squall with blinding rain and high winds. The wind instrument on our boat registered a sustained 60 knots (69 mph) and that persisted for about ten minutes. Because of the blinding rain and heavy wind it was nearly impossible to see the compass and cockpit instruments but I knew I had to keep the bow into the wind and try to stay in a westerly direction. My eyeglasses were so wet that they were useless. I found that if I stood on our cockpit seats and pressed my head up against the underside of our arch mounted bimini I could get my eyes out of the higher wind and see some of the water around the boat. My wife was down below trying to comfort our friends. There were some waves but because of the relatively short fetch from land they never got very high and in fact, during the peak of the winds, the bay surface seemed to be blown flat. There were continuous lightning strikes all around us. The high winds reduced our boat speed from 6.5 knots down below 4 with the throttle wide open. Just before the storm hit us, I noticed another large sailboat about 75-100 yards or so directly in front of us, dousing his sails and lying beam to the wind. I was aware of the danger of running into him throughout this ordeal, especially in such reduced visibility, so my attention was concentrated on the sea directly forward. There was a lot going on. After about ten intense minutes, the squall passed over us and we emerged into a gentle rain, light breezes and much improved visibility. The boat in front of us was still there but heading into the river well and safely ahead. In retrospect, one of the things we forgot was to put on our life vests. Back in our slip, we dried out our rain gear and were glad we were all in one piece. I’m not sure that our friends will accept any future invitations for a day out on the water.
