Coping With Storm Surge
It’s Not Wind That Wrecks Most Boats in a Hurricane,
It’s the Storm Surge. Here’s Why — and What You Can Do About It
When Hurricane Fran had finally blown
through, Whit Ruark ventured out of his
house in Wilmington, North Carolina,
glanced around his battered yard, and
then headed for the marina to check on his
sailboat. Despite having been awake most
of the night, Whit said he wasn’t worried;
the boat had been pounded by other
powerful storms and, thanks to careful
preparation and the marina’s sheltered
location, it had always survived without
a scratch. But when he pulled into the
parking lot, Whit was shocked to find an
almost empty harbor. He eventually found
his boat—after wading almost 300 yards
through the marsh—in a pile with dozens
of other boats, every one of which was still
tied to the marina’s floating docks. While
the entire marina had always fared well
in storms, the difference this time was a
16-foot storm surge that lifted all of the
floating docks off their pilings.
Boats at floating docks with short pilings have proven to be extremely vulnerable in a surge;
the shorter the pilings, the greater the chance that the docks and boats will be lifted above the
pilings and carried away. Conversely, floating docks with tall pilings—18-feet is ideal—allow a
boat to rise and fall with the surge without straining its dock lines. Boats at floating docks with
tall pilings have a far, far better chance of surviving a storm.
Whenever a large surge is predicted, any
marina is more vulnerable; the higher
the surge, the greater the marina’s
vulnerability. Not just boats at floating
docks with shorter pilings, but boats at
fixed docks and even boats stored ashore.
In this issue, Seaworthy takes a look at
which boats are most vulnerable to surge
and what can be done to protect them.
to empty slips further back in the marina
would also have reduced damage.
• Boats protected by a low seawall or spit of
land that is likely to be underwater. A good
example of what happens when a seawall
is overcome occurred
at the Watergate
Marina in Texas when it
was clobbered by Ike’s
15-foot surge. All of the
boats at Watergate that
were directly behind
the seawall were
severely damaged,
while farther back in
the marina, the boats,
which were better
protected by land, were
largely unaffected. The
damage to the boats
behind the seawall
could have been greatly
reduced by moving
them to hurricane holes
or hauling them out
and tying them down
ashore. Moving boats
• Boats at marinas with floating docks
and shorter pilings. In almost every major
hurricane, there are marinas like the one
mentioned at the beginning of the article
that are completely destroyed because
the docks floated away with the boat still
attached. The surge was higher than the
pilings. Note, however, that floating docks
with taller pilings are an excellent place to
store a boat in a hurricane. By attaching
lines directly to the floating docks, a boat
can rise with the surge without straining
dock lines. When boats are kept on floating
docks with shorter pilings, the solution is to
move the boat or haul it out and store it on
high ground ashore, preferably tied to the
ground. When floating docks in hurricane
areas are rebuilt, the new pilings are
almost always much taller— 16 to 18 feet.
Boats directly behind a low seawall are especially vulnerable to
surge.
• Boats at fixed docks that are too
narrow. The trend among boatbuilders
the past few decades has been to build
boats with increasingly wider beams.
Marina slips, meanwhile, have tended
