Gah! 80 m.p.h. winds! A mere breeze...
We get often that and more here in Cornwall between the Autumnal and Vernal equinoxes. Mean wind force in excess of 100 m.p.h is nothing unusual.
I was sitting in my local, The Watering Hole
http://www.the-wateringhole.co.uk/ yesterday evening with my ex-wife -to -be and my ex- brother- in- law- to- be looking at the storm developing. At the time, according to our smartphones, one of the met buoys near the Seven Stones was recording wave heights of 30ft., which is rather choppy.
I remember riding out the 1979 Fastnet gale with force 10-11 winds at anchor in St Mawes harbour with fifteeen fathoms of 3/8" chain cable, a 120lbs fisherman anchor and 150lbs of iron pigs slid down the cable on a on a collar. Our stem was level with the troughs as we pitched and as we rose the bowsprit of my 12 ton gaff cutter was throwing solid spray over our topmast 45ft above deck.
I hadn't sent the topmast down, figuring that the gear would stand it and it would give us an easier roll. It did. But even so on the ebb tide, when we rolled athwart the tide, rolling gun'll to gun'll, my girl friend and I had to lay athwart our bunk to get any sort of rest. Barnaby, the ship's cat, only turned out of his bunk to eat and use his sand box...
The next day it had moderated but was still blowing a good breeze (force 8 or so) and we put three reefs in the main and a full jib and poked our nose out past the Manacles and saw three of the Fastnet competitors running past with a free wind.
It wasn't until the day after that when we risked going ashore in the dinghy for supplies and some beers in the 'Victory'.
A friend had chanced his arm in the race as crew on
Gringo, a tupperware balsa sandwich yacht. She capsized a few times, lost her mast and filled to the bunk tops - which improved the motion no end, he said. Every so often a few ton of green stuff landed on the coachroof, which gradually buckled... before they ran out of headroom a helicopter winched them off, one with broken ribs which must have been a bit trying... the yacht was never seen again.
A year or two later I surveyed for him a Percy Mitchell yacht - 36 ft on deck, pitch pine on oak, on the lines of a Loch Fyne skiff - in which he sailed to the West Indies and back without problem.
So, yeah, we get weather here. Any trees we have are pretty well anchored.
Two countries divided etc.... In my part of the world, north Shropshire, a bit blustery and squally is about all. Usually Atlantic weather systems hit the north and west so the south rarely gets them full-on. As a result, they cause more damage when they happen. The media being London based get rather obsessed as well. I suspect the inhabitants of Western Scotland are amused... as storms like that and stronger are pretty regular features of the weather.
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