Hurricane Sailing, Caught in Cyclonic Storm Ana
We are posting this in somewhat reverse order. Experts in everything – Hold your criticisms, as we will post what lead up to this situation.
But in short, we were delivering Black Diamond from the Abacos Bahamas to Newport Rhode Island offshore in time for the Volvo Ocean, in-port races. When we left the weather was clear, and the forecast did not show any such activity in the direction we were heading. Sailing offshore a day and half out, a Tropical Storm formed, that became cyclonic just like a hurricane, and was named Ana. The wind speed reached 57 knots, just 3 knots short of being a CAT 1 hurricane. We sailed the edge of this storm, for about 3 days, and successfully out-ran it as it went inland and dissipated.
After Cyclonic Tropical Storm Ana went inland, we made good time around Cape Hatteras around the Carolinas. Then a day or two after the storm dissipated she shot out violent individual thunder storms that moved offshore, but unfortunately right over top of us. This was the worst we felt in this whole experience, and the video below shows some of what we were able to capture.
Our 6 day voyage turned into 9 days and we were still 235 miles offshore, and having a hard time beating up-wind and 15-20 foot swells in the direction of Newport.
NEXT VIDEO: Stay tuned for a mid-Atlantic Volvo style refuel by a Russian Oil tanker.
