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Old 10-08-2018, 09:43 PM   #1
rgano
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City: Southport, FL near Panama City
Vessel Name: FROLIC
Vessel Model: Mainship 30 Pilot II since 2015. GB-42 1986-2015. Former Unlimited Tonnage Master
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,984
Standing by in Panama City for Hurricane Opal

It is 2100 CDT on Monday night, and we have a predicted Cat 3 hurricane coming for us here on Wednesday afternoon. All the spaghetti tracks are in agreement, and there is little hope of escaping to wrath of Michael.

We have been preparing home and boat since yesterday morning and will continue right up to dark tomorrow night.

Our home is pretty low, but it is 14 miles from the Gulf, which gives us a glimmer of hope. However, VERY similar hurricane Opal in 1995 put knee-deep water in here - we bought the place in 2000. Many improvements related to storm readiness have been made since then, and we hope for better results than 1995. The wind predictions here on both NOAA and Windfinder.com indicate the eye will pass over us whereas Opal hit west of here about 60 miles or more a really piled in the water.

The boat normally residing in its 20,000-pound lift cradle would probably live through this, BUT I worry about the Big Top cover over the lift coming apart and wreaking havoc on the boat in the process. So the boat was moved today to a narrow and sheltered canal behind friends' house. It is anchored bow and stern with two 5/8 " lines per side tied to trees or pilings on either side of the canal - I waded ashore. I told my sailboat owning friends its presence there improves my their view.

This morning, before I came up with the idea of going just four miles to my friends' place, I gave very serious consideration to running the boat 123 miles (avg speed 16 MPH) west to Orange Beach to moor alongside my brother's Grand Banks 42 in the canal behind his home. OB was at the time on the very edge of the cone of uncertainty for Michael, but it was obvious that cone was going to narrow down onto us here in PC. I could have gotten there just at dark, and my wife could have been there to bring me back home to continue preparations.

Some of the other considerations going through my mind were:
I was going to be really tired when we got home tonight around ten PM making further preparations doubly hard.
Traffic on I-10 could have been a complicating issue possible being clogged and/or deadly.
A boat breakdown (single engine) would have left me in a really bad situation.
I would have to go through the same delivery process again in a few days to bring the boat home.

If I lived aboard, there is no question I would have left Sunday, headed a lot farther west that my brother's place. Surely on a slower boat, I would have kept right on going up the TennTom and been long gone before Michael struck!

I'll post again after the storm to tell how we fared.
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Rich Gano
FROLIC (2005 MainShip 30 Pilot II)
Panama City area
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