Re: What do you do to your boat to prepare it for the hurricane ?
No useful information to follow, just a story about a hurricane of my youth in Richmond, Va. that was previously posted on Richmond City Watch a few years ago.
And for the youngsters in the crowd, hurricane Hazel was in 1954!!
My Grandfather and Dad joint-owned a 25 ft., solid wood cabin cruiser, docked in Sara?s Creek (Gloucester Point). Granddad had died in the preceding August, and Dad could not afford the slip rental and upkeep on his sole income as a draftsman for the City of Richmond (in ?The Aluminum Building? even). Using some of that aforementioned determination (and lack of funds), Dad set out to haul that heavy boat back to Richmond using a bumper hitch on his ?49 Mercury straight stick! Progress was good along US 360 (the speed limit was 40 then, on just a two-lane road) until that poor old Mercury encountered the grade East of Pesley Farm. The clutch didn?t have enough left in it to pull all the weight. A long-boom wrecker, with boat dolly and trailer, was dispatched from Coleman Scales (W. Broad Street) to fetch the boat to Fairmount. Granddad had owned most of the 1700 block of N. 23rd Street back then, thus the boat was deposited atop 55 gallon drums in my Grandmother?s side yard??Along comes Hurricane Hazel!! Dad, Mom, Granny, my baby sister and I toted rocks, bricks and anything of weight to anchor that boat . Dad tied the bow to a pair of cherry trees and the stern to a giant apple tree. Hazel had her way with Richmond: howling wind, driving rain, pelting hail and blinding lightening for what seemed to be days (at least to this, then, six year old mind). After the storm had passed, the shutters un-latched and the ?All Clear? sounded from the neighborhood Civil Defense siren, the damaged was surveyed. There the boat sat: high and dry atop its 55 gallon drum perch, however, the cherry trees were completely uprooted and having not been secured to the boat they would surely have been blown away !!
