Rough Water Photo

[Padden]

Does anyone have a photo they could e-mail to me of a PDQ MV-34 in rough seas? My e-mail address is ppadden@mac.com Thanks very much.

[Tanah-Keeta]

Wish I had a photo..... we crossed from Stuart to Great Sail last December with forecasted 2-4 ft seas... turned out to be 4-8... not a fun trip.. was taking a bucketful of water in the face every 2 minutes or so. Everything that could move in the boat wound up on the floor... dog threw up on the cats... still made Great Sail in 9 hours.

Needless to say, we will not do that again. 2 FT or less is the magic number now... the trip back was much better... did 15 knots all the way... about 4 hours from West End.

As an excuse for this bad judgement... this was our first crossing in our 34... the last 5 years we were in our PDQ 36 sailing cat... much more sea kindly but much slower.

[jbrad]

When I took delivery and started the trip back to Florida with John Johnson, the delivery captain, we had a very short window to get into the cannal. if we did not get in with in just a few days, he boat would have had to remain at the facotry till May. When we left the marina in November of 04 late one friday night we were expecting 8-10 seas, two hours into it what we found was 15-20. No a lot of fun. All I could think of was the theme song from Gilligan's Island. After a freighter we were following turned back,we did too. It took six hours on the nose to make it back to Whitbey. While not beeing any fun, Ok, I was awful concerned, the boat did well. I figured she would be torn all to pieces, other than things tossed all around,the only real damage was a center window leak onto John's laptop. We did take water into the generator compartment through the vent, but PDQ reworked it and I have never had any more trouble. These boats can definately handle more than their owners. I wish I had pictures, but it was pitch black and I was holding on too tight to even think of the camera.

Jimmy Bradley
Mr Busy
MV 059

[Padden]

Thanks for those stories. I was asking because I am putting together a photo book of my just concluded 11 day trip from Islamorada in the Keys to Oxford, Maryland. Most of the trip was smooth. But, the first 4 hours on the Chesapeake were very rough (consistent 4 ft with periodic 6 ft swells). But the seas were organized and right on our nose so the boat did fine. But it was very wet upstairs and none of us took any pictures during that ride. Thanks again for the responses.

[Sno' Dog]

Having put over 7000 miles under our keels, we have seen our share of rough weather. I agree, the boat will, no doubt, take more than its occupants! It's hard to take pictures when you're aboard the boat, and you're not likely to have a photo-boat out there in those conditions. But, if you peruse our web site, you will find a few rough weather shots. One that comes to mind can be found on the first page of our trip south in the fall of 2006, see: www.snodoglog.com/NH-FL-06-Pg1.html. My brother was aboard as crew, so we pushed on in weather that my wife (and dog) would not tolerate!

Henry Clews
aboard Sno' Dog - tonight, in North Myrtle Beach, SC
(a tornado with 120 mph winds passed within 2 miles of us a couple of days ago in Charleston, fortunately we were safely docked - with many lines deployed! No dramatic photos, however.)
www.snodoglog.com

PS: Another rough weather photo appears at: www.snodoglog.com/08Fall-NH-to-FL-Pg1.html