Ok, so I knew I should have put a disclaimer up, but I thought fellow sailors wouldn't accuse me of trying to sail in 70 mph winds.

The official news report was 70 mph, people on the beach had wind meters, I heard 86 and a gust of 107.

The story that follows is rather long:

I was at Lake McConaughy in Nebraska. Except for the fact that I only had this boat about a week, I usually sail (when I had a boat before this one) in Colorado. Here, you have to either use "storm" wind or "evening" wind. That's pretty much the main time we have wind. This time at McConaughy i was trying to use some nice evening/storm wind. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but a very nice wind good for flying hulls. Not more than 1 minute after leaving the shore the wind picked up really bad. I could not turn the boat into the wind (I wanted to drop the main) no matter how hard I tried. The jib was furled. I had the sheets out as far as they would go but the howling wind flipped us about 2 miles from shore. I couldn't turtle the boat as I had a mast float, but honestly, I wasn't expecting it to get as bad as it did. My friend swam out to the end of the mast to disconnect the main so if we did flip it the main would come down (remember, still hoping for the best.) well the wind caught the tramp and flipped the boat again. My friend ripped off the mast float. I swam out towards the end of the mast to try and get him and finish the job he was doing.

I don't remember much after this. but the boat just started to "cart wheel" away and my friend said. I think I held onto the mast, it bent, hit me on the head or something, I don't know. All I know is that I woke up on the boat with the wind literally howling, 4 - 7' waves, mist all around, half my mast laying across the hulls with the other half in the water, and my friend nowhere to be found. I was convinced I was dreaming as it was literally like something out of a movie. So I sat there for I maybe 10-15 minutes before I realized I was getting cold, and you don't get cold in a dream. I freaked at that thought because if it wasn't a dream, where was my friend? I started screaming for him, and after a few minutes I saw him crest a wave. He told me to stop yelling, he couldn't hear me and finally got to the boat. He said was really loopy and he had been swimming for 10-15 minutes at least. He thought he was going to spend the night out there. I regained my senses after a bit and we tried to get back to shore.

About an hour later (it's dark, and has been for a while) cars on the shore start shining lights out to the water (finally my friends on shore do something) and a punk kid on a jet ski came and rescued us.

On shore a 20 cart wheeled away, slammed into a trailer and ripped it's hulls in half. Tents blew away, a motor boat by us sank, campers blew off their jacks, it was insane.

My friends on shore said they thought a tornado came through it happened so fast. complete sand storm.

So only damage really so far is a taco'd mast, ripped sail, and some punctures in the side of my hull where the mast was dragging.

I'm glad the thing bent and stuck in the water. If it hadn't been for that, my frined never would have caught up to the boat. It was a nice sea anchor. Made it hard to get to shore though.

Funny about the girlfriend. Her name is Keri. Close to Katrina, eh?