The Tempest

Three nights in the Bohemia. How luxurious! The water is cool and clean and perfect for swimming. We put up the sun shade that connects the bimini with the dodger, and we have a lanai, right on our boat. Swimming, reading, writing, bird watching; we take full advantage of this idyllic spot in the upper Chesapeake. 

Until…

Rick had warned me that there was a chance of thunderstorms on our second day here. It has been hotter than Hades for a week, and there’s a cold front coming our way which will likely create some storms.. We’ve been through numerous storms on this boat, some while underway, and most while at anchor, so we know the routine. Once we can see a storm coming, Rick lets out a lot of scope with the anchor chain, we close all the ports and hatches, and we settle in for a little squall. Rick loves to watch lightning shows from the companionway, and since there isn’t room for two on the companionway ladder, I have to find another place to hang out inside the boat. The biggest danger for a sailboat during a thunderstorm is a lightning strike to the mast. Our mast goes all the way through to the bottom of the keel, making it a centerpiece in the main cabin. Rick reminds me to stay away from it during the storm. Truthfully, I was very blasé about the whole thing. Been there, done that, ho hum, no big deal. I take my Kindle up to the v-berth (bedroom) and tune out the storm. The boat rocks and rolls a little, as one would expect, but I feel perfectly safe.

All of a sudden, the boat violently heels over. This is not normal, even in a storm. There is a loud rhythmic pounding sound, the whole rig is straining, and I am immediately worried that the anchor chain might snap.

Then, just as suddenly, our boat rights itself, as if nothing had just happened, and that ominous pounding is gone, with only the sound of rain on the cabin top remaining. 

I scramble out of the v-berth to find Rick at the companionway, watching the storm pass over. He tells me that the bimini canvas, caught by the wind, had ruptured part of the metal frame, leaving everything dangerously flapping. Afraid we might lose the entire thing, he had rushed out to reset the arms of the frame, if only temporarily. While he was tending to the bimini, a sudden blast of air, like a micro burst, caught the dinghy, raising it into the air and then flipping it upside down. Now, dinghies can and do flip over from time to time, but usually this happens when the waves are exceedingly high. What just happened was very strange; it appears that the wind alone caused the one-hundred-twenty-pound dink to flip.

Rick’s best guess is that we just got whacked by a tiny tornado. 

The storm is over pretty quickly, and the sun emerges from behind the dark clouds. Upon closer inspection, the canvas on the bimini has not ripped as we had feared, and Rick tightens up the frame so we’re good as new. The dinghy presents more of a problem. Rick dives into the water and tries to right the little boat, but it just will not roll back over. A vacuum has formed inside which is keeping the boat from budging. We’ll need to get creative.

Rick hooks the bow of the dinghy to the main halyard - the line used to raise and lower the mainsail - and he uses the winch to pull the boat upwards. My job is to hold the dinghy off of Valkyrie so neither boat gets damaged. As Rick is winding, I can hear the squeaks and groans of the halyard, and hope it’s strong enough for this job. The dinghy is quite resistant, but eventually we hear the “pop” of the vacuum seal being broken, and from there it’s a relatively easy task. Rick pulls the boat up, turns it, and then lowers it back down. There’s still a good deal of water inside which will need to be pumped out or hand bailed. A slight problem emerges though - the hand pump along with the bailer had been inside the dinghy before it rolled over, and now they are AWOL. Oh well, Rick uses the bucket we have on Valkyrie, and all is well.

There were more storms coming our way, all in a line, with very active lightning, but they all acted like “normal” thunderstorms which we weathered just fine.