Ever want to sail through a Hurricane?

saildrone 1078 is manuevering through Hurricane Fiona right now.  

https://www.saildrone.com/press-release/saildrone-video-hurricane-fiona

That's really cool. And no, I don't 

I have a degree in Meteorology. When I was in school, I wanted to focus on tropical meteorology and fly on the hurricane hunters.  That looks fun and vomit inducing at the same time.   Love it

I just saw a video clip from that drone on the morning news a minute ago.  I've never heard of a sail drone before but it makes a lot of sense to have one for monitoring storms.

I sailed in a tornado over a freshwater lake in a 16 foot hobicat once. Hell of a ride.

I want to stand on the beach and stare down a hurricane before I die.

I always thought it would be fun to be on the ocean during a storm on a massive ship, like an aircraft carrier or something that an idiot like me would consider stable. 

yes. I would absolutely love to.

I have worked in the Offshore oil industry for 35 years and I  have seen hurricane video from some of the huge Floating Production Facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

The lower decks of these are close to 100 feet above the water level. 

  In major hurricanes the waves are higher than that deck and there is significant splash of seawater even higher than that.  

My father did, back in the early 60s, on a freighter from Europe. Storm knocked out the engines and they were adrift for a week or so, IIRC. That was after they had been intercepted by the French Navy in the Med for suspected arms smuggling to Algeria.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

I want to stand on the beach and stare down a hurricane before I die.

It's weeks of wanting the news people to shut the hell up, followed by a couple of hours of I hope that tree doesn't crush the house, which is then followed by weeks of the worst kind of yard work you can ever imagine. It's really overrated. 

Yep, not my favorite thing. The one headed our way is pronounced "her mean" and I hate that.

Margie

No, I haven't.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

I want to stand on the beach and stare down a hurricane before I die.

Maybe if you armor up and anchor yourself to some concrete blocks on the beach when the hurricane is blowing inland, you could do it not-immediately before you die

This guy pulled it off without all that preparation but there was some luck involved:
 

Whenever I think of hurricanes, and fortunately on the West Coast I do not need to very often, I think of the scene in The Perfect Storm where the boat goes up the wave and then slides backwards to its doom. Then I think that I shall remain a landlubber.

I took a 27 ft center console from Bermuda to Norfolk, VA passing through hurricane Bob in 1991. DO NOT RECOMMEND. 

I remember an old movie about a boat stuck in the eye of a hurricane. They kept pace until they ran out of fuel and were rescued at the last minute by a Navy submarine.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Is it just me or does it look like that dude is given the finger to the hurricane? Also that looks like a hell of a lot of fun

Haha he's holding up a wind measurement device

Dusterbd13-michael said:

I sailed in a tornado over a freshwater lake in a 16 foot hobicat once. Hell of a ride.

 

I want to stand on the beach and stare down a hurricane before I

In reply to RevRico :

I’ve been in 50 foot seas in the N Pacific on a container ship.  At one point we were rolling so badly I was sliding around in my bunk and couldn’t sleep.  Grabbed my life jacket out of my locker and wedged it under the mattress, jumped over the high side and slept like a baby wedged between the mattress and the bulkhead.  

In reply to 11GTCS :

In some ways, a smaller vessel is easier as you can ride the back of rolling waves for a decent amount of time. You spend a lot of time debating the life vest though. Drowning is terrible, but dying of exposure and dehydration after days a drift at sea would be even worse. 

In reply to Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

We weren’t in any danger but it did give me pause contemplating what it would be like in an open lifeboat in those conditions.  No thanks.

As storms go it was pretty uneventful other than having a bearing fail on one of the forced draft fans, a big tapered roller pillow block that was around 4” bore. That was a blast to work on way up in the engine room with the occasional 20 degree roll.  We weren’t going anywhere on one boiler (which was making enough steam to turn the shaft the equivalent speed for 12 knots in calm seas) basically just holding our position into the seas.  I had to fab up a homemade puller out of steel plate and threaded rod as the bearing was close to 2 feet up the shaft and nothing in the tool crib was long enough.  Once we got the old one off we were back in business in a couple of hours. 

Dusterbd13-michael said:

I sailed in a tornado over a freshwater lake in a 16 foot hobicat once. Hell of a ride.

 

I want to stand on the beach and stare down a hurricane before I die.

Just a few moments before you die, possibly.

I have wandered around outside during the eye of a cat 4 hurricane. It was very strange walking up and down the street checking on neighbors. To go from deafening roar and shaking house to complete silence and back to a deafening house shaking roar in 15 minutes was bizarre.

Literally standing in the middle of the road talking and saying here it comes. 3 minutes later the wind and rain is back full force and you know there's another 3 or 4 hours to endure. 

Good luck to those in the path.