imagineero wrote:

As far as hail storms go - ouch! We have about one of these a year in
sydney and it seems every 2 or 3 years we get a pretty big one that
makes insurance companies unhappy... Im hoping to not be more than
about 10 miles offshore at any time, though if i go really far north
i'll probably take the common route of sticking to islands to avoid
crocodiles. My wetsuit wont help me much if i bump into one of these
hungry lizards ;-)

Shaun

My usual winter sailing attire is a wetsuit over the usual sort of base
layer and on top of that a thick jersey (guernsey actually) and
depending on the weather either a spray top or full offshore foulies
over the top.

As to the hailstorm, it was late march on the south coast. I was out on
a small cat. Saw the clouds gathering behind a fairly high point a
couple of miles away and thought it looked a bit dodgy. Then it became
apparent it was heading our way. Didn't look too bad, no thunder, then.
As it came accross the point the thunder & lightning started. At that
point I wanted off the water *fast* I started heading for the nearest
shore but the wind had dropped to nearly nothing (inflow into the
circulation cell?) and I could see a line of white accross the water
sweeping down from the point. I figured it would be best to meet it on
one bow rather than abeam or astern so I put the boat on a close reach
and overhauled the mainsheet so it was fully slack and freed the
traveller. Then it hit. Whiteout. Freezing horizontal rain and wild
windshifts. We were coping reasonably well but were fairly
disoriented (no compass). Then the hail started. In about a minute the
trampoline collected at least an inch of ice. We were hunkered down
trying to protect our faces. The wind had eased slightly but was still
sliceing the hail at us. I decided to run off before it as we
couldn't stand the speed the hail was hitting us at nor see anything to
windward. I steered off onto a run and my crew hastily joined me on the
aft windward corner of the tramp to keep the lee bow up. The rudders
were singing and the vibration through the tiller was pretty fierce. I
have no idea how fast we were going. I could see a lighter patch ahead
and the hail was easing so I steered for it. When I finally got out
from under the storm we still had a couple of inches of ice on the tramp
inspite of the spray washing over it at high speed and we were over a
mile from where it had hit us. We beached as soon as we could as we
could still hear thunder and feared another cell was developing.

Size estimates of the hail stones were from looking at the half melted
remmnants on the tramp. There cant have been a lot of 1" ones or we'd
not have made it, and even through wetsuits, heavy jerseys and foulies
we had a fair number of bruises. Haven't done much cat sailing since :-)

--
Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk
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'Stingo' Albacore #1554 - 15' Early 60's, Uffa Fox designed,
All varnished hot moulded wooden racing dinghy.