It was the Dog Days of Summer 2011, September 4 to be exact, and those of us who find suffering at the lake better than suffering at home were there at Heron Lake with our little sail boats. The fishermen with their pontoon boats and Bayliners and an assortment of other lightly powered craft suitable for fishing. There were some kayakers and perhaps a canoe. Sail boat wise, there were keeled mono hulled sloops, two Hobie Holders, one Prindle 18, there was a Hobie Mirage Tandem Island, there were five or six Hobie 16s, one Hobie Wave, four or five Hobie 18s, and two Formula 16s.

When I got there late afternoon Thursday, Rich and Louise had their camping van and Hobie 18 set up. Andrew and Elizabeth had their camping trailer and Taipan set up. I had time to level my mini van and chat around before dark.

Friday brought the arrival of motor homes, some with boats in tow, and tent campers, some with boats. And we did do some sailing, not as a group per se, and not at any one particular time because the wind was “light and variable”. There were times when the wind built in one direction and we all would get excited for a bit but soon enough it was “light and variable”. There was a period of time, Friday or Saturday that I was able to fly the spinnaker repeatedly and Jeb followed with a demonstration of putting his H 18 up on one hull for sustained periods of time. Almost always there was some air moving but the sails on the water all seemed to be puttering slowly along on their own path, rarely would you see two boats sailing along together.

Saturday brought more motor homes, more campers, and more boats (already counted). It also brought the traditional Hobie Fleet 48 pot luck dinner feast. Hobie Fleet 48 never lacks good food.

Sunday was the epitome of Dog Days sailing. There was kind of a breeze coming from the south, but not always from the south, some times the west, sometimes the north, back and fourth and around it went. Not too exciting. I found myself lying face down on the trampoline, or maybe on my side and some how the boat kept moving in a circle while I slipped in and out of sleep. I don’t think anyone on shore noticed but a stationary fishing pontoon boat eventually approached close enough to see if I was okay. I raised my head and waved with both arms to perhaps six or eight people on board the boat all looking in my direction.

After that I was thinking I would return to shore but I noticed that Turtle Dave and others had come out to play and the air out of the south was strengthening. Soon enough there were a bunch of us out sailing, Holders, Trimarans, H16s, H18s, and a Blade F16. We were starting to have fun but the wind would build and soften so I got to feeling like a bit of a yo-yo. To the north and east we were seeing some rain slanting to the west but it didn’t seem like it was moving toward us. After an hour or so I started hearing a rumbling, now and then. In passing I think Curt indicated that we were suppose to get some of what ever was making that rain. After a while it seemed like some of the boats were aimlessly puttering around waiting for whatever that rumbling rainyness was. I remember thinking that there would be a lull when that sketchy breeze from the south would die and it seemed to be upon us now. The rumbling became thunder. And the thunder became lightening and rain and wind, the kind of wind we like.

But the wind kept building and so did the rain. Helter skelter, boats were seeking shelter. I was on a course parallel to Turtle Dave and Donna, toward the east end of the lake, going on the south side of the island. I learned later that in those opening gestures the two yellow H16s managed to get off the lake, Mars did also but I don’t know his story. Jeb and his wife Cindy had duel stories; while Jeb and his crew were setting hull speed records, racing the storm front in a broad reach, dressed in summer dole drum clothing, with eight inch swells in front of them and two foot waves behind, Cindy was battling an awning on their motor home which had freed itself from stakes and tie downs only to be luffing hard against the top of the motor home and over to the left wall. She tried to capture the awning and sit on it but the wind and awning threw her aside, heading again for the lee side of their home on wheels with D rings flapping hard against siding and glass windows, ouch…three broken windows. I believe that the whole camp was in chaos, tying down boats and grabbing any loose articles that the storm wind wanted to carry off. There were at least three torn sails.

Mean while I had de-powered my little F16 as much as I could; full out haul, full down haul, an inch or so of mast rotation, traveler out, sheet tight, lee dagger board full up, windward dagger board six or seven inches into the water, diamond wires were six hundred twenty five pounds, and me hooked to the trapeze wire but sitting on the hull. At that point I felt that going ashore with my light boat would be uncontrollable. I postured my boat at about forty five degrease to the waves so that I had no sail flapping and enough forward motion to be able to steer. I then noticed that Turtle Dave was driving his TheMightyHobie18 with wings as if he was going some where, he was sitting on the windward wing as Donna sat beside him on the trampoline, latter I learned she was snapping pictures of my boat and a rainbow. I thought he was headed to some cove, I felt better holding my position as the rain intensified and my view of the world diminished to perhaps thirty feet. I was watching the waves and how the bows were hitting and piercing them. I was grateful that I had wave piercing hulls because the boat pitched fore and aft less and it made it harder for the wind to get under the trampoline and through me over backwards. As the waves built I was pitching fore and aft and felt like I was on a hobby horse so I tried to move foreword to the center of the hull, which reduces that pitching, but the dagger board was up more than it was down and I wanted to keep it that way because everything seemed to be working and it gave me something to wrap my arm around. I was looking up at the waves, which made them more than four feet. (Later I calculated that my eye level was about three and a half feet or so above the water.) As I was starting to feel like things were in balance I noticed that the spinnaker had come out of its sock two or three feet, something inside me was saying, “if that thing comes out, you’re a goner”. May be it was Dad or maybe it was Mom, but as I kept glancing at the two or three feet of spinnaker I kept hearing, “if that thing comes out, you’re a goner”. The spinnaker retraction line comes up through the trampoline about eighteen inches behind the mast so I started reaching for it with the toe of my shoe, not wanting to leave the hull I was sitting on, but I had to. I waited for a gap between the larger waves and moved to where I could reach the retraction line and returned to the hull before pulling the spinnaker back into the sock. About that time the hail started and I started to feel the earth, soon I looked across the lee hull and saw the hill side descending into the lake with rocks, at the edge of how far I could see through the rain and mist, about twenty five feet. I tried to change my boat trim and sail away from the approaching land but to no avail so I prepared for my fate by pulling up the dagger boards and popping the rudders, the port rudder didn’t pop up and as I was moving to where I could hang myself over the boat so I could get a hand on that resistant rudder it freed itself and came up.

At about that same time Turtle Dave and Donna made land fall and managed to get the TheMightyHobie18 ashore and stuck in some pretty good mud. They got the main sail down and rolled up and then kind of made a nest beneath the lee wing. Then just to sweeten things up Dave found a way to stick the dagger board between the wing and hull which blocked the wind nicely. I don’t know what they talked about.

I suddenly found myself in a placid little lagoon, the descending hill had kind of a hollow place that was sheltered from the wind. On the dirt of the hill there was a little trimaran lying by itself with no human traces about. The water was almost still with only little ripples form light air and it was a light greenish blue. There was mist in the air and the hail stopped. The sail was not flapping or catching any wind. That’s when the loose screw in my head finally fell out, I thought “the worst of the storm is over, see, there are no waves, I can sail this back to camp”. So in go the dagger boards, down go the rudders and I’m off, still I can’t see more than about thirty or forty feet and it wasn’t long before reality returned and so did the wind and the waves, but now I was on a starboard tack. The waves were as big but maybe not packed as tightly. The visibility started increasing. After a while I saw the island, I wondered if I should go above or below it and I wisely opted to pass on the leeward side. When I was in the lee of the island the wind quite diminished and I was tempted to try and hole up there but I didn’t think I could hold that position so I continued on toward the north side of the lake which I presumed would be sheltered. Soon enough I noticed a collection on mono hulled sloops there so my presumption was accurate. I kept on. I thought I couldn’t tack onto a course toward camp in this amount of wind and a jib would be insane. I kept on. As visibility increased I noticed that I could see the camp, it was sunny and peaceful looking. On I went toward the sloops, one or two were still out in the unprotected water and heading to the bay, I saw one with a jib up, the others were bare poled. My mind started to drift a little as the waves were letting up.

I was trying to switch the main sheet line from the left tiller hand to my right holding on hand when a larger wave lifted the starboard hull and I started sliding down the trampoline. I yelled, “God help me” as the mast and sail came closer to the water. Maybe my wandering mind was an indication that I didn’t need as much help as I had needed thirty minutes ago. As the mast and sail were contacting the water my legs and buttock were also sliding in. Capsized. Although my arms were tired I moved easily to the hull where the bridle wire attaches and crawled onto the boat. I thought about righting the catamaran but the wind was still blowing hard enough that I was worried about loosing the boat to the wind in a righting maneuver. I noticed that the wind was blowing me and boat directly toward camp and I thought ‘why not enjoy the ride’? I road it out for probably thirty minutes like that until a pontoon boat came roaring out to me. There on the bow of a Stone House boat was Curt and Beth waving and asking if I need help righting the boat and I said I didn’t but wanted them to stand by while I did the righting incase anything went wrong. They did and I did and then Turtle Dave and Donna appeared, and we all returned to camp.

After my boat was all secured with the help of four or five others the man camped next to me said that I had been sailing in hurricane force wind, maybe sixty five miles per hour. He told me the symptoms of hurricane force wind and said that he had been in at least several hurricanes. After that, word in on the beach was that the wind warning light on the island goes from white blinking to yellow blinking at forty miles per hour wind speed and changes again at seventy miles per hour to a red blinking light. Apparently a park ranger, and others, had seen the blinking red light.

Besides the boats that had wound up on shore none too gracefully, a couple of children were lost for a while in a kayak. Fortunately they were found on that beach area next to the western dam.

There was some minor property damage but I don’t think any one was hurt.