Leroy
07-24-2004, 11:12 PM
We were on Dale Hollow week of July 12-16th. On the 12th out of Sunset Marina a brief storm hit and we had to park the houseboats quickly. Then on the evening of the 13th we were watching lightning enjoying dinner and then it hit. Mostly wind, 70-80MPH with huge waves. I barely had my boat tied down so had to enter and tie down to the houseboat shoreline and I had never seen water so violent. Turns out I was on the down wind side of the houseboats and when I went back on the houseboat I saw the other side, where my friends boat was. I saw the bottom of his boat above the hand rail of the house boat. They were trying to keep it from being destroyed or landing in the houseboat. Looked like a cork in the ocean. Ended up putting two tubes between the houseboat and his ski boat. We expected it to be shredded fiberglass, but ended up with only few scratches and rub rail knocked loose. The two 65' houseboats tied together and to shore bounced around like ski boats. We were listening on the marine emergency channel and it was chaos with houseboats that had broken loose and were drifting, one family did have a small boat break the window into their houseboat and water was coming in, and one little boat was sunk. There were lots of trees down and power was out for several days in many TN/KY towns.
I post this as a reminder to always be prepared. Growing up in TN and looking at the weather for the week ahead of time, I would never have guessed a storm like this would come, but will certainly be more cautious from now on! Oh, yes we were parked in a fork, but from where we were parked there was mile or more of open water out the fork exactly in the direction the storm came!
My boat didn't suffer any damage from this, but did rub the "F" off from towing beside the houseboat, guy at the marina said that was the best way, and would have been if the letter didn't rub off. I would say don't do that, pull your ski boat behind the houseboat.
I post this as a reminder to always be prepared. Growing up in TN and looking at the weather for the week ahead of time, I would never have guessed a storm like this would come, but will certainly be more cautious from now on! Oh, yes we were parked in a fork, but from where we were parked there was mile or more of open water out the fork exactly in the direction the storm came!
My boat didn't suffer any damage from this, but did rub the "F" off from towing beside the houseboat, guy at the marina said that was the best way, and would have been if the letter didn't rub off. I would say don't do that, pull your ski boat behind the houseboat.