There we were, just outside the mouth of the Rappahannock River in the Chesapeake Bay, in near-hysterics over what had just happened.
I was with three colleagues on Serene Zelda, my 1988 Hunter Legend 37. Aaron Clark, Steve Miller and Bob Wenig had all made several 300-mile trips with me each spring, so they were well experienced for a group of occasional sailors.
No storms were forecast, and we had not heard any warnings when we checked VHF weather stations. We were about four miles from shore and under full sail with 8 to 10 knots on the starboard rear quarter. A light drizzle had been intermittent since we left Irvington, Va., three hours earlier.
As the author of a safety guide for school technology laboratories, I'm a bit of a safety nut, so whenever it's stormy or dark I require all hands to be harnessed, clipped-on and wearing a safety vest and a personal strobe. On this gentle evening, it was neither stormy nor dark, so we were not yet that well outfitted and would don the safety gear before dark.
AARON CLARKAfter reefing, the author, left, and crew members Steve Miller and Bob Wenig hold huge hailstones, already reduced by about 10 minutes of melting.
THE CALM
Back to that peaceful May evening. Both sails were full and the boat was making a comfortable 6 knots directly down our rhumb line – what bliss.
As night approached, Steve Miller, the helmsman at the time, noted some adverse weather developing in the distance and a lightning strike far off behind us. I decided we should take a reef as a precaution so we would not have to do it in the dark if the weather changed, as it sometimes does in the unpredictable Chesapeake Bay. Besides, I was to go off-watch for four hours and I wanted to leave the boat slightly underpowered for good sleeping.
I asked Steve to turn into the wind so we could reef. Just as he turned, we all noticed a tremendous increase in both the wind and the heel angle. In fact, the boat heeled over farther than I have ever seen – well beyond 50 degrees.
Bob Wenig and I jumped to the sheets and eased them out a little to keep the boat from heeling any further. Steve held on to the helm, but turning further into the wind was already impossible as the wind roared wildly. Aaron Clark was below, just beginning to prepare for cooking supper. He wisely stayed there, not least because in case we all got swept overboard, he would have been the only one able to come to the rescue.
I have no actual measurement of the wind speed at that time (this was one of the many years in which birds had decided to disable my masthead wind gauge just prior to our annual trip), but it was much higher than the 42 knots in which we had sailed successfully with reefed sails on one of our other trips.
I was holding the mainsheet while Bob managed the jib sheet, and both sails were fully deployed. I had to use care because the swept-back spreaders will tear a sail if you let it rest on them in heavy air. Letting the mainsail simply fly free like I used to do on my old dingy was not an option; I had to control it or risk ruining a new sail.
Everything looked as if it was okay and we would simply have to hold on for a few minutes until this freak wind passed. The sky was non-threatening, with just a few clouds. From below, Aaron yelled out that everything was all right down there, and I gave the command to just hold on to what we had. After the "blow" was over, we felt that we would be able to reef easily.
'LIKE A TRAIN'S WHISTLE'
Then it happened.
Everyone compares the sound a tornado makes to the sound of a freight train. I always thought that referred to a rumbling sound. But what we heard coming now was an eerie screaming like a train's whistle. And everything grew absolutely bright white.
Something hit my head hard, and then hit it again. I thought it was the loose sheet behind me as the boat began to heel much further. All of us on deck simultaneously yelled, "What the ____ was that?"
We scrambled to climb onto the normally vertical portside surfaces that were now our only viable standing places. Then we realized that it was hail – we were being pelted with big chunks of hail. They were coming not from above, but straight at us from the starboard side.
We all instinctively turned our backs to it and continued to maintain the helm and trim the sheets. By this time, both sails were well into the water, the clinometer was totally out of range and the mast made about a 10-degree angle with the water. All we could do was hang on and pray.
Leaning on its side, with no keel in the water to make it move forward, Serene Zelda skipped across the water sideways like a child's toy. Before and after sightings of the lighted marker at Stingray Point showed that we made considerable distance sideways and almost none forward during the blow.
Three minutes later, it was all over, as quickly as it had started. The boat popped right back up, and we were once again sailing in gentle conditions.
THE AFTERMATH
To look around, you would barely realize what we had just been through. All of us on deck had cuts and bruises on our heads and necks from the hail, but there were no serious injuries. The cockpit was shin-deep in hailstones, but nothing was broken. Below, nothing was broken or damaged at all except that the rear berth was full of hailstones that had blown in through the rear starboard porthole.
Was it a white squall? A microburst? To this day, I don't know. Nor do I know what the peak wind speed was. But I have been through Hurricanes Hazel, Camille, Fran and Alex, and I have never heard a scream like that.
Wordlessly, we calmly completed the reefing job we had planned to do, and the trip continued without further excitement. It didn't take long until our pent-up emotions emerged, then gave way to relief and finally to laughter – and no small measure of pride in a calm and seamanlike reaction to a real sea challenge.
LESSONS LEARNED
In hindsight, though no foul weather was predicted and conditions were benign, at least one crew member should have been clipped-on and PFD adornment all around is always a good idea. Had crew members been swept overboard, no rescue would have been possible until the event was over and by then then it might have been too late. With the availability of inflatable PFDs, the old excuse that they are uncomfortable and cumbersome is even less viable than it used to be.
We had not heard weather warnings on the VHF as recently as an hour before, but more careful monitoring may have given some early insights. The best advice would be to monitor weather information continuously, not just hourly. We do not know if there were warnings of active storm cells in our general area because we were not listening closely.
Though we did keep fairly diligent watches, since this weather incident came from the rear it is possible we could have seen it earlier if the person on watch duty had been more careful about looking back as well as ahead. In one of our previous spring overnight trips we had been nearly run down by an aircraft carrier crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in a storm because the on-watch crewman had been so concerned about what lurked ahead that he had failed to monitor astern carefully enough. Watch duty means watching in all directions with intent, not just to casually gaze ahead.
Calm seas and light winds mean little in the rapidly changing Chesapeake Bay weather conditions, especially in springtime. Being prepared for the unexpected is the mantra of any good sailor, and it pays off in both safety and enjoyment.
RIDE IT OUT
We do not know specifically what this weather phenomenon was. "White squall" certainly seems appropriately descriptive because there was no warning, the air turned absolutely white with the blowing ice and it was over in less than three minutes.
"Microburst" could also be a possibility. The wind did not change direction during our experience and was a straight line in form, so tornado and waterspout are both unlikely.
There was no close-by thunder or lightning during or after the event, though there was drizzle off and on most of the night, so it was not a normal thunderstorm or squall line that we had all experienced before. In fact, if it weren't for the one photograph we took afterwards, I'm convinced we would have thought it was some sort of simultaneous, demented dream.
Whatever the weather phenomenon was, once it was upon us our only choice was to ride it out. Had it lasted longer than a few minutes, letting the jib fly free and winding it up would have given us some control to tackle the mainsail.
The old adage says you should reef the first time you consider the question, "Should I reef?" We tried that, and it was already too late. Maybe a better watch astern or monitoring of the radio would have prodded us to ask the question sooner and act accordingly.
But seamanship comes in many forms: experience, planning, alertness, practicing routines and safety procedures before they are needed, and studying accounts by others are a few examples.
Each year, I have seen lots of boats that are severely damaged by events similar to what we went through. They limp back home dismasted, with their interiors full of broken glass and assorted liquids, or with sails ripped to shreds from simple squall lines. On this day, Serene Zelda held its own, and good preparation kept everything in place.
Though my crew members all say I go to the extreme with safety requirements and fastidious storage of all gear, it paid off. On this day, everyone just calmly did his job without panicking, and we all lived to tell the story.
Jim Haynie, a professor of technology education at North Carolina State University, sails Serene Zelda, a 1988 Hunter Legend 37, out of Irvington,Va. A version of this article was previously published in SAIL magazine.
