Hi, everyone. Sorry about the sparse updates. We have been getting the boat ready for the storm. We expected 45 mph steady (forecast is now 50 mph gusts), so we are hoping that our preparations, which should be good for higher speeds, will be enough. Pictures after. What I did not do is take down all of the sails, which I would have if expecting 90 mph sustained. We've gone through 45 mph while underway (briefly, preceding a squall, and boy was that a surprising moment) and an overnight with 25-35 and lots'o'rain recently, and that was no problem for any of the structures on the boat. So instead, I got Grant to help by holding the jib sheet firmly, and we wrapped the jib carefully and tightly, with many turns of the jibsheet around the furled sail at the end. Then I crawled along the main boom and tied the sailcover firmly with dockline all the way along its length, rather than removing the mainsail. All of the loose stuff from the afterdeck went into the dock boxes and the cushions went into the rental car. The clear vinyl windows were removed from the hard dodger, the ladder and boogie board were removed from the superstructure, as were the garden lights we usually leave aboard in various spots to light us automatically at night.
GOES-13 satellite image of Isaac, courtesy NASA
Last year at Palm Harbor in Pensacola, we remembered going through a sprightly storm system and taking those same precautions, but a fellow farther down the dock had his headsail open up (got caught by the wind and ripped open), and Derek spent like 45 mins with other guys from the marina trying to help get that under control. also, one of the dockboxes went right over in the wind (flying dockboxes can damage your boat's finish, doncha know), so I walked the dock around our boat yesterday testing the dockboxes - they are all very securely anchored.
We had a vacation week deposited with Interval international that was about to expire, so I "cashed it in" for a week
now and moved us into a local vacation resort yesterday. The parking is covered, too, which should help with the rental company -- they get testy if their cars get damaged, even if it's by giant palm leaves driven at 60 mph into the car. So avoiding that is a good thing, too.
I don't like being away from Parallax, but I have set things up so she should come through it all well (and indeed, Derek set up extra lines before we all flew to Colorado and Hawaii a few weeks back), there are dock lines to every available cleat and pad eye on the boat (and on the dock). I'll drive over there this afternoon when the wind gets cranking a little more, just to be sure she's handling it well. We expect the highest wind speeds late tonight and pretty much all day tomorrow. The storm surge is not expected to go over 5' -- that means the floating docks will rise up to 5' along with the boats, sliding along the tall concrete pilings that hold them in place. These were erected with hurricanes in mind, so they rise about 14' above the surface of the docks at normal conditions. So, they should look shorter tomorrow, unless Isaac moves farther west than expected. At the moment, they look normal. Here's a continuously-updated satellite image of the weather in our area, so you can check for the "now" conditions long after I post this :-)