looks like it got real ugly on the lake today

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Thanks, Gem. So even the anchors in rocks, which many think will save them in a big storm snapped... I was going to suggest running engines to stay at anchor - we had to do that a few times in the houseboating days, interesting even that didn't work this time. I could not count the number of times I would point out a potential camp site to George and he would nix it as being to exposed to the main channel..... he was pretty unbending on that subject.
 
Did the Adonia roll onto its side?

I was told Antelope Point's dock 3 (owner's side) electrical was up and running by Saturday morning. I called them Friday about their electrical supply to decide whether the food in the upper small friges would be any good. Not much food anyway, and since we're in the process of selling Cropduster I'll just throw it out. They said all their staff was out on the lake...looking, repairing and towing.

I posted several photos about 6 or 7 years ago when we were blown off our anchors....half way back in Padre Canyon facing the SW with Gunsite protecting us a little. I guessed the gust at 60 mph...10:30 at night...4 of us sitting in the saloon. It had been windy all evening so I had 4 anchors on each side and 2 in the middle for a total of 10. All 4 anchors on the port side ripped out. Immediately started the starboard engine and went full starboard at high power. Kept the boat centered with the shore and sent my trusty 1st officer out into the night to re-anchor...he was about as happy as a pig in poop on that one. The two main anchors on the left flew into the air about 25 ft. from shore...and flew another 25 ft. into the water. Luckily it was shallow and he could walk out to get them in shoulder high water. The boat didn't get close to going parallel to the shore...since it was a short burst, the engines held us in place.
To be fair, we weren't able to anchor in the shallow sand more than 2 feet...so my bad.

The 75 footer about a quarter mile to our right ripped completely out of his anchors (only had two set). They had been asleep and woke up floating around...about 100 yards out in the lake. It was funny watching them doing the monkey's and football dance. Every light they had was on and searching around to find out where they were. Each one of them with a different idea as to their location. We of course had our lights on which helped orient them. But all the hollering and jabbering was hilarious. By then is was calm.

This recent storm was obviously longer and a lot stronger than ours.

weeds
 
We we on the lake on Thursday, had the houseboat anchored to the beach in a nice cove just north of Hole in the Rock, right across from Ribbon Canyon. The first storm came through at about 11a. The winds were hitting the houseboat directly on the starboard side, as they had been for the last couple days, and up to that point the anchors were holding to the beach. A strong gust hit and ripped the anchors, along with half the beach. I looked up just as it broke loose, going to have nightmares of flying ropes and anchors, scary. I was able to get the motors going and get control of the boat but not without running on top of one of my jet skis when I got it back on the beach. We decided at that point since we wanted to move that day and were already loose, we would ride out the rest while motoring north on the channel. The weather cleared for a while and we had 3 jets fly over a few miles north of the Escalante. Right about the Rin Con a second storm caught us. Steering the houseboat proved difficult in the winds, but we managed. One of the craziest, and very frightening things I have seen in the lake were the little swirling waterspouts the gusting winds were creating in the big bay below the Rin Con. The third wave hit as we were going through Bullfrog bay, big waves and strong winds. We were lucky, even found a break in the weather to beach in Bullfrog around 5:30p, with the beach being just about nose to the wind. Overall probably worst storm I have ever been through on the lake, and first time I have been ripped from the beach.
 
Weeds,

I'm pretty sure the boat pictured on its side was one of the Adonia's (I guess there's about 5 or so stationed out of APM). I'm not sure which Adonia it was - appartently the owner at the time who was on the boat was named King. The picture that Pccaptainjack posted of an Adonia looks like the one that rolled to me, there is damage on the top starboard corner. It's frustrating how little information these "journalists" gather in an effort to be first to print then never follow up with more details or correct their initial errors made in that rush to print.
 
Waterbaby said:
Thanks, Gem. So even the anchors in rocks, which many think will save them in a big storm snapped... I was going to suggest running engines to stay at anchor - we had to do that a few times in the houseboating days, interesting even that didn't work this time. I could not count the number of times I would point out a potential camp site to George and he would nix it as being to exposed to the main channel..... he was pretty unbending on that subject.
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George was smart at being unbending. That is one of the biggest and costliest mistakes made at the time of beaching and one of the easiest to avoid.
 
I'm amazed the houseboat rolled over. It doesn't seem to me a 60 mph wind could do that. I have been in a few 60 mph sustained wind storms on Powell and the strength of those winds did not seem sufficient to flip a houseboat,lots of other damage to be sure. Could there be some design issue or maybe the gust was greater than reported?
 
I doubt the wind alone would. However, the action of the waves has to be considered. How long of a fetch did was the broadside of this boat exposed to? A long fetch with those strong winds could produce waves large enough to help tip that boat on its side.
 
On another thread, we talked about the principle that big, tall, fancy houseboats have some drawbacks in that they are a big sail and that wind really affects them. There is a good reason that white knuckles and short tempers are common among owners and operators of these kinds of boats from the time they leave the slip until they return. This is just a logical extension of that discussion with a little higher wind gust.
 
Gem Morris said:
Weeds,

I'm pretty sure the boat pictured on its side was one of the Adonia's (I guess there's about 5 or so stationed out of APM). I'm not sure which Adonia it was - appartently the owner at the time who was on the boat was named King. The picture that Pccaptainjack posted of an Adonia looks like the one that rolled to me, there is damage on the top starboard corner. It's frustrating how little information these "journalists" gather in an effort to be first to print then never follow up with more details or correct their initial errors made in that rush to print.
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The Adonia was somewhere in Padre Bay, the one posted on it's side was by the big sand dune. There was another one I saw at ramp but did here where it was at.
 
I was on the water last Thursday when this storm hit - had just returned from up-lake to my slip at APM 30 minutes prior. In 30 years on the lake, I've never experienced sustained winds of this magnitude in a storm - my anemometer read over 60 mph (see blurry photo I took during the storm) for several minutes and sustained winds were 40-65 for over 20 minutes. Power was out to the entire marina for 18 hours. As of today (Monday), fuel and pumpout are still not available at APM pending repair of the dock and associated connections - they are expected to be back up later this week.

The white caps you can see in the attached photo are coming from the South with only about a 300 foot water run to get this big - you could normally see the South tire barrier to the marina if not for the wind and waves.

IMG_20170914_1347520.jpg IMG_20170914_1346584.jpg
 
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Gem Morris said:
Weeds,

I'm pretty sure the boat pictured on its side was one of the Adonia's (I guess there's about 5 or so stationed out of APM). I'm not sure which Adonia it was - appartently the owner at the time who was on the boat was named King. The picture that Pccaptainjack posted of an Adonia looks like the one that rolled to me, there is damage on the top starboard corner. It's frustrating how little information these "journalists" gather in an effort to be first to print then never follow up with more details or correct their initial errors made in that rush to print.
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The Adonia i posted in the parking lot is indeed the Adonia that rolled on the beach and where the lady lost her Arm. by the looks of these photo's the boat rolled, trapped the lady's arm and when the wind let up the boat righted itself. I Can't see a name anywhere on the boat, but i heard it was only 3 weeks old. I know they have put 4 or 5 new adonia's on the lake recently. IMG_0316.PNGIMG_0315.PNG
 
These pictures look a lot like the canyon on the left with the two large dunes around MM64? Normally a pretty protected spot. Did they ever narrow down where this was? I'm still confused how it rolled on this ladies arm? Thank God she wasn't killed!
 
This was taken from another site. NOT MY POST


Those are friends of my wife, she's known them since she was 13, LDS Church, really sad, 80 year old grandma had to have her arm amputated when the granite top hit her, and the mom broke a hip, pelvis, wrist and broke her cheek bone in her face.
 
Waterbaby said:
These pictures look a lot like the canyon on the left with the two large dunes around MM64? Normally a pretty protected spot. Did they ever narrow down where this was? I'm still confused how it rolled on this ladies arm? Thank God she wasn't killed!
Click to expand...
This was right under Gunsite bute padre side
 
Hope everyone is safe...This year we were out in Dungeon and saw a 75 foot rental throw one anchor off the bow and stayed for the week. We usually have 4 and you think you go deep, but see and read articles like this...nope!!! Nothing you can do!
 
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