Titusville - Happy Hour with friends

After hurricane Irma, this guy was taking no more chances

 Florida is full. There are no slips south of Titusville. All the marinas have every dock spoken for. We had a couple come in today and took the end face dock, not the most favorable dock with the wind and waves coming into the marina but that was all that was available. There was no other choice unless you wanted to take a mooring in 25 kt winds.

We walked the dock and discussed the various procedures each boat took to avoid damage during hurricane Irma. No layout of dock lines was really effective due to the high water. It didn't quite reach the tops of the pilings but came very close. What it did do was slacken the line since they were attached near the top of the pilings  on the cleat at the top. As the water rose, the lines became slack which allowed the boat to lunge at the pilings, thereby damaging the boat.

Your can see how high the water rose by looking at the damage to the piling

There were many examples in the marina but only a few were enough to prove the point. The lines need to be tight as the  boat rises with the water. The slips are not all that big, the pilings are too close. One cannot consider Titusville Marina to be a hurricane hole. It's too open to the southeast. It's protected from other directions but not from the southeast.

We had 25 kt winds today so we took the wind as an experiment in positioning lines and fenders. We will be leaving the boat for 1.5 months and we want to come back to the same boat we left. Hopefully, everything is okay. It seemed to be okay today.

We will leave to go north on Thursday and return early in January. We'll see how successful we are upon our return.