Ernesto And Its Aftermath

By

Don Baker with photos by Joe Reid and Lenny Kalb

     Following Ernesto’s onslaught on New Jersey, Joe Reid and Lenny Kalb took photos of the havoc created by what was supposed to be a glancing blow to New Jersey.   They can be enlarged on your computer by clicking on the thumbnail photos to see how much damage was done by the storm.  We encourage all members to view them to see just what a bad storm can do and to draw lessons from them. This is a preliminary report. 

The weather web sites and weather reports by the TV and radio stations turned out to be wrong and winds vastly underestimated.  On a couple of  Internet sites, the forecast was for winds up to 29 mph, surely nothing that spelled the disaster that Ernesto was.  What also was not forecasted was the duration of the storm. 

     According to an Atlantic Highlands member, 24 boats broke loose from their moorings, and were scattered all over the municipal marina’s shore and along the shores of Sandy Hook Bay. A large number sank or were totaled.  Some were high and dry on the rocks, others on beaches, and still others in the grass along the shoreline.  Three boats were destroyed when they slammed into the Earl Navy Weapons pier. 

     At Keyport, four boats broke loose, and 11at the Raritan Yacht Club with one sunk and several others likely totaled.  At Great Kills, it was also a disaster with 18 boats leaving their moorings.  We understand that one drifted over 30 miles all the way to the Manasquan Inlet.  In Cape May and at Stamford, Ct, there were also reports of major losses, but how many boats were lost is not known at the time of this writing. 

     Waves were five feet or more in the Atlantic Highlands municipal harbor, with boats pounded for about a day and a half.  

The Keyport Yacht Club requires all boats to have a backup chain to the mooring in addition to pendants.  Perhaps that accounts for why so few boats broke loose in what is an exposed harbor. 

     What this experience points out is that boats in exposed areas simply have to be moved to safe harbors or hauled.  In this instance, the storm was not forecasted to be severe, but winds were clocked at 57 knots at Sandy Hook and at the Raritan Yacht Club higher for an hour and a half with strong gusts. According to the Raritan Yacht Club, it was the worst storm to hit their fleet in ten to fifteen years.  RYC reported that a number of boats had their jibs unfurl.  If not rolled tightly, and if a small section allows wind to catch hold, it could unfurl.  Interestingly, while the ocean, Sandy Hook and Raritan Bays were raging, the Shrewsbury River was quite calm, sheltered as it is from the east by houses, condos and other buildings.  So, with hindsight, if boats had been anchored in the Shrewsbury River, probably they would have been safe, but that’s hindsight.

    At Raritan Yacht Club, a few boats had their cleats ripped out.  A couple of boats had their bow anchors come loose that cut the mooring pendants, and some anchors on the bow cut pendants.  Another problem was bobstays that cut pendants.     

     One of the rope manufacturers had an article a few years ago suggesting that for short mooring pendants Dacron should be used.   Even with chaffing gear around cleats and chocks, it stated, Nylon is in danger of breaking, not only from chaffing, but because of the heat buildup inside Nylon strands that melts strands as they expand and contract.  A preliminary examination of broken pendants at  RYC did not indicate heat as the problem.  However, the primary reason for some boat losses at RYC was chaffing from acute bends at the rail, or chocks that were not very large or not smooth.

     After preparing this article, I found a Boat/US web site in my ”Favorite Places” dealing with mooring and anchor lines.  It contains a great deal of useful information that you can read at http://www.boatus.com/hurricanes/line.asp.  And there is another excellent web page dealing with the preparation for a hurricane also worth reading, http://www.boatus.com/hurricanes/hurr_prep_guide.pdf.