T/S Gabrielle struck the gulf coast of Florida on September 13th, just two days after the National Tragedy, crossed the state and kicked our butts through the 14th and 15th.  We had been out of town and returned late on the evening of the 13th.  When we checked on Sarah that night, the wind was blowing a little, but nothing seemed amiss.  By the time we got down there Friday morning, the wind was gusting to 30 mph, but no one seemed to think it was going to get any worse.  All the TV stations were dedicated to coverage of the events unfolding in New York and Washington.  Even the Weather Channel folks were in such a state of shock, they didn't give much attention to the storm. I'm not being critical; I know the weather was the last thing on my mind in those terrible days.  Anyway, the wind continued to pick up and mid-afternoon on Friday Dave left the yard where Sarah is and drove across town to check on a 36' Watkins we had in the water at another marina.

Dave said the first thing he heard when he got out of the car was a headsail ripping in the wind.  Too bad it was ours.  He secured it with a halyard as best he could - nearly getting blown off the deck in the process.
It was mid-afternoon of September 14th, and I was at home.  I had had all I could take of the horror and tragedy, and had turned off the TV and the cell phone and shut my eyes for a bit.  The house phone rang and Dave, frantic and out of breath said, "I need you at Sarah, we're loosing the top!"

We're less than a mile from the marina, which was a good thing because the road along the waterfront is low and floods with a few inches of water with any real high tide.  As I made my way down to the marina that day, the water was completely over the road and beginning to come up over the hood of the car.  Expecting the car to stall at any moment, I kept a pretty good speed - for driving through solid water - figuring that the more momentum I had, the farther it'd coast and the less I'd have to swim/walk.  Dave said later that our gold Dodge Intrepid looked like a submarine coming down the street.

The rain was pouring and the wind was howling. Dave was atop our 10' ladder cutting the canopy tarps away with his knife.  As he cut the canopy free, I helped secure lines to the frame, which was doing a heart-stopping Edward Scissorhands dance around her.  We were seriously lacking in much of anything to use to secure the framework.  The masts had been removed and the rigging disassembled, and who needs docklines or the like when you're going to be out of the water for a couple of years.  We used what we had, accepted some lines from some friends with a boat in the next marina, and when times got really desperate, employed drop cords (which by the way do not tie well at all...).

We got home and into dry clothes just in time to go back out and deal with a downed tree and other damage to some rental property we manage. Oh yeah, at some point in here we lost power.  We spent Friday night going back and forth checking on the jack stands and making sure the enclosure framework wasn't beating into her.  I spent a lot of the night sitting in the car at roughly the same angle that the picture above was taken from, turning on the car lights and checking on her every time the wind increased.  One of the worst moments occured when I managed to stand in a fire ant bed while fighting one of the supports back with a drop cord.  It was pitch black, and can't figure out why my feet and legs are stinging.  When I finally realize the problem, I'm thankful for the darkness because I shed shoes, socks, and pants on the spot.  That time I drove home cold, wet, scared, and bare assed.  It was not a good night.

The rain pretty much quit by Saturday, but wind stayed heavy through Sunday.  They recorded wind over 75 mph at the beach, and we heard that the marina across the river measured gusts to 80.

Amazingly though, there is only ONE SMALL area on her cabin top that was damaged.  This shows about an 8" x 4" area where a piece of the broken frame rubbed, but other than scratching heavily what looks like about 10 layers of paint over cloth, it didn't even break the surface.  Sarah's lucky star (and moon) certainly did good work.  I don't know how the gulf coast area faired, again, there was little or no coverage because of the need for national events to take precedence.   St. Augustine suffered far more damage than in Hurricane Floyd.  A section of the sea wall gave way, dozens of little boats drug anchor, and while our marina only lost a few sections of walkway, at least one lost several sections of floating docks.