[C36IA] 60 knot line squall

[Ed Jakubas]

Nice work, Fred. Glad all are OK.

Ed J.

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 10:50 AM, Frederick Jackson <jacksonfa at earthlink.net
> wrote:

> The admiral and I left Sarnia, Ontario to sail 136 naut. mi. up Lake Huron
> to Tobermory, Ontario.
> we were sailing along nicely on a beam reach in 25 knots of wind.  Great
> sailing. I was watching weather developing east of us over Michigan.
>  Watching means monitoring my XM weather radar and data download.  The four
> storm cells would all pass south of us, and it look like all we wouold get
> is rain.  But as the nasty stuff approached, I decided to reef the main just
> in case.  As I did, I felt the wind increase some, so I decided to get the
> main down.  The wind keept increasing and the admiral, at the helm was
> reading wind velocities to me.  So I furled the genoa.  In about 5 minutes,
> the wind went from 25 knots, to a steady 54 knots, with at least one gust to
> 60 knots.  This lasted for 20 minutes.  I had heard of these line squalls
> when I grew up sailing the New England coast, but I never experienced one.
>  Even with the sails down, when broadside to this wind, the boat laid over
> pretty good.  I chose to head at the huge waves and wind at about 20 degrees
> off head on.  This s
>  eemed to work well.  I had to use all of the M35B's guts, and I was glad I
> have the 3 blade MaxProp.  I was concerned enough to Pan Pan the Canadian
> Coast Guard to let them know we were there, and give them position.  Glad I
> have the remote mic. in the cockpit.
>
> Amante handled this fine, no damage.  We were towing our dinghy, and this
> line squall came on so fast, I did not have a chance to shorten the painter.
> At one point, Amante was going down a wave crest with the dinghy still in
> the following trough.  The painter broke and the dinghy floated off to
>  parts unknown.  I reported the lost dinghy to the Coast Guard.
>  Fortunately, the motor was not on the dinghy.  Frankly, given what we went
> through, the loss of the dinghy seems like a minor consequence.
>
> Fred J.
> Amante #2209
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