Hurricane Season

It's only about a month away. Got preps?

My lovely wife and I drove all over Florida. I don't think we saw any region that was completely unaffected by the hurricane. At bare minimum there was tree and water damage. Then there were the Middle Keys, that still looked pretty bad back in January. As much as we missed sailing, we didn't regret leaving the boat behind.

This coming winter we have a bit of a dilemma. We'd really like to spend a significant amount of time on a sailboat. We are kicking around three different ways to make that happen.

One way is to buy a bigger boat, one that can't be trailered. Already I've come across a number of deals on some good boats. They are older boats, of course, but solidly built. Sailboats in New England don't spend nearly as much time on the water as boats from the south. The season is short. A well maintained older boat can actually be safer than many of the newer production boats. I almost did that last year. Had I done so, I'd have run into the hurricane while sailing the boat down from New England. There's a fair chance it would have been damaged or destroyed. I'm not sure about how I feel about runnig into a bad hurricane season again this year.

Option two is buying a larger trailer sailor boat. It would be nice to have more room than on my Oday 19. While a larger trailer sailor won't be as heavily built as a boat not meant to be trailered, it can escape storms on a trailer being towed out of harm's way.

Option three is to just use what we've got: the converted camper van pulling the Oday 19. We could do a mix of camping and sailing. It would be the cheaper option. Last year I put new tires and wheel bearings on the trailer and only towed it two miles. Also did some electrical upgrades to the boat. More upgrades are going to happen soon. We plan on sailing that little boat quite a bit this summer.

Option three would free up funds to do improvements on the house. Some projects are currently in the works, but more funds would get more projects done. Should something happen and we don't close the house down for the winter, it would be nice to have those improvements in place.

On any given day, we lean towards different options. In reality, we have a few months leeway before making a firm decision. In the mean time, I'm taking care of the van, the Oday and the house. While doing those things, I've also got an eye out for the weather.

It feels funny, as a moutain dwelling New Englander, to worry about southern storms. Then again, we are all in this together -even if I wasn't planning on going south for the winter.

-Sixbears