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Hurricane Hermine.

a.k.a. Invest 99L, a.k.a. Tropical Depression Nine, a.k.a. Tropical Storm Hermine, a.k.a. Post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine, a.k.a. Remnant low of Hermine, a.k.a. Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty. This thing has been all over the place.

It started off the west coast of Africa and tracked across the Atlantic, where it dumped heavy rains on the Caribbean. It then moved into the Gulf of Mexico, made a sharp right turn, and headed in to Florida. It remained surprisingly (to me) intact across Georgia and the Carolinas before heading back into the Atlantic, where it was predicted to sweep back to the left and stall off the coast of New Jersey, potentially sending us tropical-storm-force winds, rain, and cycles of coastal flooding for days.

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Although it wasn’t predicted to really hit until Sunday, the forecast for Saturday still included 30kt winds at the shore, which is not conducive for removing sails, so I took off Friday and met Jen at the marina to pull the canvas under more manageable conditions. That went pretty smoothly.

On Saturday, I packed gear to stay overnight on the boat and headed down again. I found midship cleats—our boat doesn’t really have midship cleats, but we have a couple cleats that can ride on our jib sheet track and be positioned to take a spring line. I installed these and corresponding lines and set fenders, but the forecast was lessening so I wound up not staying on the boat.

By Sunday, it was clear that the most-feared scenario was not going to happen, and while it was too windy to consider putting the sails back on, it wasn’t really all that bad.

So Labor Day weekend was a bust for sailing activities, but I have no regrets about being prepared.

 

"Prepare to fend off the bridge abutment."