Here is another post That "WouldWorker" posted on another site....Thanks for the information WouldWorker...Mark
Please pardon my mis-spellings?
I was a crewmember aboard "BluByU". We were in the Jolly Mon tournament. A fellow from Germany named Anheiser Busch held us up by kidnapping a crewmember and kept us from starting the on time. And the tough bait catching made us even later. We saw a dark sky and frequent lightning approaching. The feeling in the air ...warmth, stillness and the heavyness just didn't feel right. Our Captain made the call to hangout at the "Provisions" dockside grill and wait out the storm. We were among the first at the bar as we tied the boat up and there was plenty of dock space left. In the next half hour the place would fill up with sloppy wet shook-up tournament anglers. Here are the stories from different boats and those that joined us under the flopping fabric roof of the "Provisions Grill".
* "The wind was soo bad that my center console boat heeled over so hard that I was inches from taking on serious water. We nearly capsized". "I have never felt wind soo hard". "The water was spraying into the boat soo hard that I held up large boat cushions against the wind to deflect the spray that was filling up the boat". "I think we may have been in a Waterspout/Tornado".
* "The fishing poles in the T-Top rod holders bent over so hard, is was as if a fish was hooked up".
* "As we passed the beach coming in we saw several boats intentionally aground sideways on the beach with waves hitting them crossways". It appeared the crews beached their boats and ran for cover in beach houses".
* Lighting Strike: Three tourney anglers adorned in sopping T-shirts hastily tied up a 30ft trailer boat named "Fishing Musician" A sister boat that motored in with them docked quicker than they did and pointed them out as they were tying up. "Those 3 guys were hit by lightning" they said. I looked harder at the boat and saw they had their starboard engine tilted full up and their port was running. Their VHF antenna was half there and looked like an exploded cigar where it sheared off at its mid-section. The crew looked shaken and excited as they exited the boat. One of the crew came out of the boat soo quickly that he fell back down on the dock unhurt, the exit was akin to a soldier excaping his fighting position under hostile fire. When they got under cover their smiles were wide and their eyes were clear white with wide open alertness. The three tough and tanned gentleman immediatley joined our "community" and burst out with news of combat from the front lines. The Captain said that every circuit breaker popped, everthing electronic just stopped and was quiet." "In fact the hail got soo big that it punched through my Eisenglass Windshield in several places. The two mates chimed in ... "We were standing side by side, heard the bang and a sensation. "I looked down at my elbow and saw a bolt of electricity jump off me and connected me to my buddy, whoa! that was strange". The Captain later assessed his boat and managed to get his port engine to fire up, but little else electronic on the boat worked.
* By now it was standing room only at "Provisions".
The power had gone out. A small Creek was washing through the kitchen. And the staff had shut down equipment and took stock in their saftey equipment. Dry T shirts were being sold by the handful.
The Sweet and Understanding Owner of the establishment came up with her storm policy. There was no electricity so we were all on our honor to run and settle our tabs after the debacle. "Take what you want, write it down and we will settle up later" is our plan. With the stoves out of sevice she got donuts out and began to feed the crowd. She was totally into our saftey and threw fiscal management to the wind. Down came the storm flaps and keep everyone safe was her goal.
* The cooks and waitstaff went out during the torrent and started bailing out boats with steam trays and mop buckets. The occasional boat came untied and they were all over it helping the crew. During the worst of it two hardcore boat members saw mullet flipping at the dock and their need for bait exceeded good sence and the crews assaulted the dockside mullet armed with cast nets. Those were guys that needed bait bad and were optimistic the that storm would soon pass.
* the storm mostly over, we resumed the tournament. The radio was jumping with chatter of a capsized boat at lighthouse rock. We throttled up real hard and passed the Large Coast Guard Boat that was just outside of the inlet. Once at the scene we began to look for the missing "third crewmember in a white T-Shirt". You could see the keel and bow of the capsized boat along with three other boats at the scene. After a few minetes of searching, one of the three boats, a small rescue boat blinking a blue light came on the radio. That boat said with a sad and somber tone that they needed a "Stokes Litter". Nothing definitive was heard, but the lifelessness of the tone told the story of what was to enter the Stokes Litter once the big coast guard boat arrived. If there was any good news it was that the two surviving crew were aboard a "Good Samaritan Vessel". Hopefully they didn't witness the view of their "Lifeless Skipper".
We progressed on when another call came out that was 13 miles away. It was a boat that was taking on water rapidally. The skipper was very calm, competant sounding and had it all together. I envisioned a smart experianced fellow with a well maintained boat. With little extrainious talk he made his transmission like he was reading from an aircraft checklist. "Our location is .... We have XX personnel on board ... taking on water very rapidally ... everyone is outfitted with their PFDs ... I am a that ... I have this... etc. So how does a person with good sence, a sound boat and years of experiance get into a situation? The storm had been over by the time all these distress calls got out.
I got home safe that night and read up on lightning strikes. I questioned why a healthy well maintained boat could sink an hour or so after the storm. Here is what I read ... When a lightning strike occures you don't always know it and the path to ground could be through the hull or a thru-hull fitting. When the electrical burst exits it can leave you with a hole in your boat. And to add to that the strike can also kill your bildge pump. In any case, even the best maintained boat with a competant skipper can have a "Stuff Happends Day" that compounds itself. All of Saturday's taking on water/capsizings could have been lightning strike damage to perfectly heathy well maintained boats that went unnoticed until it got to a disaster level.
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