Violent thunderstorms Corsica/ Tyrrhenian sea

[Roberto]

On July 18th a number of very violent thunderstorms have swept Corsica and parts of the NW Italian coastline.
Winds have hit 60+knots, with tops at 90ish, all came suddenly out of nowhere and lasted a few tens of minutes.
Countless damages, many boats have sunk and a significant number (tens) have been thrown ashore in several different places.
One picture among the many available by internet search; some videos are very similar to those shot during hurricanes

 

[Clancy Moped]

One dead in club Olympic, Santambroggio from falling trees, Girollata was horrendous.

 

[Roberto]

The arrival of the gusts, from 5 to 50+ in a handful of seconds

 

[capnsensible]

Eek......

 

[Stemar]

Eek indeed. That's NOT why I go sailing!

Not trying to second guess, I've never been in that situation and pray I never will, but I thought I'd like to have the engine running to try and keep head to wind in that mess. Good idea or not?

 

[dune16]

Weather can be so weird sometimes ?

 

[Yngmar]

It looks awful. Acquaintances from last winter were up in Calvi on a Leopard cat. Their anchor shackle broke (should've used Vyv Cox's advice ) and they pulled up an empty chain but managed to safe the boat with the engines. After it passed, they retraced their plotter track and recovered the anchor, just a few scratches for them, but four other boats in the rocks. They said 65 knot gusts, which I no longer think was exaggeration.

We were in NW Sardinia. For us, the forecasts had been chaotic and dead wrong all day and night and we just checked radar and lightning maps during the night to see what was coming. Best spot we could find was unfortunately in dodgy bottom with lots of rock. I dived down and stuck the anchor in a big rock crevice to hold in the direction we expected the weather to come from. At least we had 300m+ tall mountains on either side for arrestor rods.

We saw the enourmous front coming from the Baleares on blitzortung.org (online lightning detector) and then it swept north just before hitting us. Instead, we got a few crazy 180 degree wind reversals and were just zooming from one end of the swing range to the other until the anchor stopped us hard (the snubber helped a lot here). I was sure I would pull up a bent shank! In the morning the anchor wouldn't come up, so dived down and had a look. It was stuck in that same fissure between two rock plates, much to my surprise, the shank wasn't bent (it's a Rocna!) and we had broken a big chunk off the rock, but it hadn't let go. It came out with a bit of tugging by hand

Been resting in the mere Mistral. By evening a 47ft Fontaine Pajot came in, which I thought was one of their power catamarans until it came close and I saw they had lost the rig, the flybridge roof was torn off and wires and guardrail hanging off one side. Ouch.

This was in northern Corsica, not that far from Calvi:

 

[st599]

We had similar gusts off Dungeness in the dark. On board wind guage was on the end stop but met office said 57 knots.

Forecast was for 18, we were all in shorts and t shirts, reefed for the night, then started cooking. Then crack of thunder and blam 18-50+ in about 15 secs.

Painful being on the roof getting the main down. Then made 12 knots under bare poles.

 

[Roberto]

Latest French news say 48 boats sunk in Corsica, plus an unknown number in Italy.
First tecnical reports are of broken chains in buoy moorings (Calvi buoy field terms state boats should leave if wind above 5Bft), for anchored boats many had too short scopes, several had their connector broken.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Sad to see that, at sea you just never know!

Experienced similar in Scotland. Once was years ago of the Firth of Clyde, flat calm, blue skys. A crew member noticed these white caps heading our way. Went from a calm to a F6 in an instant. Recently, on the west coast, same thing, from a F1 to a F9 over about 5 minutes. Both situations were high pressure, warm weather for a few days, with a low pressure system passing to the west, no clouds, blue sky day.

 

[Kelpie]

We caught a bit of this in Mallorca.
Highest gust we recorded was 49kt. Fairly sustained spells of 40kt+. We had high hills upwind of us which may have led to some of the turbulence we experienced.

We'd heard that something was coming, word of mouth, but nothing appeared in the models on Predict Wind. We took some basic precautions- engine off the dinghy, deck tidied up, shade awnings down, head torches charged up.

At about 3.30am we were awoken by the lightning, which became constant over the next hour or so, and the sudden rise in wind speed. We dragged almost immediately. 25kg Rocna on 10mm chain. Admittedly we hadn't put out any extra scope, which might have helped, but we didn't have all that much space so that could have caused complications.

In hindsight I think we could have treated the warning a bit more seriously. We could have found more space and let out a lot more chain. We could also have dug the anchor in to suit the expected direction.

I did wonder about laying a second anchor, but given lots of other boats were dragging all around us, that could have caused more problems than it solved.

 

[KompetentKrew]

Posted on Reddit today:

 

[KevinV]

Posted on Reddit today:

Poor buggers.

 

[oldharry]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=5348877125205576

 

[sailaboutvic]

Weather can be so weird sometimes ?

Over the 35 plus we sailed the Med there no doubt storms in sept and Oct been getting worst . Can't remember one this bad in Aug .

 

[LadyInBed]

Over the 35 plus we sailed the Med there no doubt storms in sept and Oct been getting worst . Can't remember one this bad in Aug .

I am hoping that you faired ok ?

 

[sailaboutvic]

I am hoping that you faired ok ?

Luckily we wasn't there , it's the first year in about 7 years we not got caught in a storm over an F8 .
Not yea anyway .
Last year I nearly lost a eye when two 14 mm snubber snap and hit me in the eye while trying to replace them .

 

[capnsensible]

Different, I think, to last weeks thunderstorms, but some might find this interesting about Med weather.

Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone - Wikipedia

 

[Roberto]

French MRCC said they treated 110 Mayday during the incident (125 were sent, part to Cross Corse part to Cross Med), 500 people have been rescued. A number of wounded people, two deceased a fisherman and a kayaker, none from the boats crews.
First analysis tend to identify the phenomenon as a derecho, a fairly common MCS convective structure in the US, very rare in Europe.

 

[KevinV]

First analysis tend to identify the phenomenon as a derecho, a fairly common MCS convective structure in the US, very rare in Europe.

Is it related to the rain squalls in the Caribbean that bring huge winds for a short period? It looked a lot like it in the video - once experienced never forgotten - a couple of minutes notice as it comes over the horizon. You learn to reef/drop sail early, and very quickly!