[Cajundaddy]

Sail often enough and you are certain to meet a storm that will test you to the limit.

We sailed in a few 60kt plus storms that added some early grey hair to my head. The first was a December storm off Pt. Furman in the middle of a Catamaran race. Several boats were lost onto the rocks or breakwater but we managed to keep ours upright through monstrous wind and seas, often finding ourselves completely airborne over the wave tops. When we got back to the beach we had a storm survivor party with the other lucky ones.

The second was also a cat race off Pt San Luis. Half the fleet capsized with some sailors becoming tangled in the rigging and risk drowning. Fortunately no one was killed but many injuries as a cold front moved through while we were on the water. Again we were lucky and stayed upright while airborne wave hopping to get back to sheltered water.

The third was of all places, Lake Mead on Memorial weekend. We had planned to sail our 24' cruising cat to Catalina but heard the weather report looked rough, and with 2 small kids on board we trailered to "safe" inland waters instead. The front hit Catalina with 60 kt winds capsizing a dozen boats and damaging the moorings at Avalon and Isthmus.

I was pinned to the weather radio and heard that this storm was heading our way. We tucked tightly into a narrow canyon, set the main anchor on a bridle into the wind and ran a line from each stern to a stake on shore for a very solid 3 point triangular mooring. When the storm hit we heard report of dozens of small craft being swamped or capsized. A few battered power boats came into our little canyon and we helped as we could with extra food, water, and extra blankets as we all waited out this storm. 60kt gusts howled in our rigging for 2 days and finally on Monday the wind died down. Once the weather radio gave the all clear we hauled anchor and headed back to the marina.

Callville marina was severely damaged with the entire outer docks torn out and loose boats strewn all over the place like a hurricane hit. Nearly 50 boats were capsized or sunk on their moorings in this nasty storm. We slid our cruising cat onto her trailer, packed her up for traveling and headed home after a quick "thank you" to our maker for keeping us vigilant throughout this wild weekend.