Hello group.
What are the safety issues with water spouts? Do I run from them? I plan on conquering Lake Erie this summer and I remember them from when I was on shore. Thanks, Mike

Don't put yourself in a situation where you'll have to deal with them. When you see a squal line, get to shore immediately. This weekend I got caught out in the middle of a horrendous line of storms in a lead-hauler that drafts 7'+ and when we turned into the wind to help a san juan, the wind (54 highest witnessed on knotmeter) had us on our rail with no sails up. I'd have to say that you'd be screwed on any kind of beachcat in that kind of weather. Waterspouts just don't come out of the middle of nowhere *unless you're in Miami*.

Dodge them if you can ! Even in little old Ireland, where we do not have extreme weather, I have experienced waterspouts - well, only once actually. Below is a report I wrote for a magazine in 1998.

"Down south the sailing started with the Blessington Spring Lamb event on 5th April. The first race started in a light force 2 and the cats drifted around for the first hour. A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder up at the north end of the lake woke everyone up. The wind started rising and black clouds moved in. Then a dark wall, of what turned out to be huge hailstones, swept across the lake towards the cats. The sound of the approaching hail on the water was amazing, but nothing to what came next. More thunder and Lightning and out in front of the wall approaching us came about four or five mini tornadoes. Not that mini, each one towered at least twice as high as our 30ft mast and had a large circle of churned up water at the base. They passed safely either side of the first Dart Hawk but Dermot McHugh and Julie McGuire on the second Hawk were not so lucky. They were hit full on as they were dropping their gennaker. The back of the cat was picked up in the air and swung around and the boat was thrown right over.
Dave and Susan Lynch's Dart 18 was also capsized. The "force eight plus" gale that accompanied all this only lasted about four or five minutes and within another ten minutes was down once again to a force two at the most."

O.K. I understand to get the heck out of the water when a front comes in, but, I've seen them with no fronts comming through, just a hot summer day. Are they dangerous when they are not joined by a front? Thanks again, Mike

I've seen those when we used to fish offshore in my G'pa's boat off Hilton Head, SC. Everyone seems to take those very seriously. The first time we encountered one we were out fishing over an artificial reef and noticed that all the other boats had disappeared. Inquisitively, we turned the radio on and realized they were departing because of a water spout. We looked around and realized it was a mile away and headed toward our direction. Needless to say, we hightailed it 90 degrees to it's path. It was a bright sunny day with a few clouds out - it was weird.

Here are is a picture of 2 different spouts that occured this weekend on the Outerbanks of NC near the Wright Memorial Bridge. They both look like they could do some damage to a Catamaran!!
Here is Picture of one and a link to the other.


2nd Spout

that was probably the same line of thunderstorms that I was stuck in.

It was about 2:45 on the Mainland side of the sound on Sunday. Near US 58.
BTW: Glad to see you survived your Monoslug sail!!

Waterspouts may look interesting from the shore but they are TORNADOS.
They can be just as destructive as a tornado on land.

P.S. If you are on a floating mobile home, PRAY!!

here's one spotted in Alabama the other day...

Lift or header?

$10 on lift :P