Tornado in Santa Ponça
Friday 5 September, Laura and I were lying on our bunk in the aft cabin. We had not slept well that night because of a cold we both had. We were dozing and looking out of the hatch as occasional raindrops rattled on the teak above us. I realized with a gradual awareness that it had got really dark and ominous outside.
I rolled out of the bunk as a reflex and made for my "prairie dog" perch, the top rung of the companion ladder. Laura was closing the Stbd aft scuttle, which on GILANA is through the topside and only two feet above the water. I looked ahead, to the West, past the steel yacht ARGONAUT who we had last seen in Bonaire in 2000. All boats in the Santa Ponça anchorage were rapidly turning to the new heading that a chill breeze brought. The sky was dark as night, but in the West, a strange green-grey glow was approaching like we were in a dark ring surrounding a funnel that reached the heavens.
In the space of a few seconds the wind was over 40 Knots and GILANA brought her nose to meet the threat with her usual confidence. Ahead there was obviously so much more to come. The last I saw of CORSTA V,
a 133 ft Cutter, before she merged into the white of the storm, was her mast go over 50 deg while her bimini was plucked off her stern. All we could hear was wind screaming through our rigging, our small awning that is part of the spray dodger, had come loose from the mizzen shrouds, and flogged in the cockpit like pistol shots.
Through the wind pressured plastic windows I saw ARGONAUT coming directly toward us. She was making 3 knots sideways as her Bugel anchor offered no challenge to the wind. GILANA yawed back and forth hanging off our new 66 Lbs Bruce anchor with 100 Ft of half inch chain, and in one swing to port, ARGONAUT drifted past exactly where we were positioned only moments before. The wind, now screaming like a jet engine on test, bore down on us from directly above, the hailstones bounced insanely on deck, blinding us even further before filling the scuppers. I glanced back to see how other boats were faring. All I could see out the back of my cockpit against the white whipped froth of the boiling sea was my outboard propeller sticking up out of the green heaving waves. Above this my Aero6gen leaned over in a completely berserk attitude with no blades on the hub, and the inch and a half stainless steel tubing bent like a toy. (see picture on previous page)
Then it was all over, the wind, hail, the noise, an eerie calm descended except for the rumble of the receding storm off to the East. Ashore, sirens were sounding, and soon were accompanied by chain saws as the rescue services freed cars and trucks from under uprooted and broken trees. The thatch beach umbrellas and pedal boats were heaped up against the front line buildings like piles of discarded junk.
The entire experience took between 3 and 5 minutes and the maximum wind speed was measured by one vessel as 102 knots. In retrospect we had no time to be scared, it was too quick. Jogging ahead with the trusty Detroit crossed my mind, but was pointless as I had no idea what our heading was, and experience has proved that it sometimes does more harm than good. We flipped the RIB upright and got to work on the 15hp Yamaha immediately. I pulled the start cord gently to feel water in the cylinders. Several short gentle jerks on the start cord cleared this down the exhaust ports.
By now Laura, and Liz dressed only in panties, were swimming about with masks and snorkels, trying to retrieve our gear, including the outboard gas tank floating off a few yards away. I removed the cover of the Yamaha, and squirted fuel directly into the carburetor, one hard pull and the motor fired halfheartedly. Encouraged by this, I drained the float bowl, and reprimed the fuel. About 10 decent pulls later the little beauty was running again while visions of a power head rebuild faded in my mind.
The next hour was spent in the dinghy helping other boats and recovering lost gear adrift. Our wind generator, the trusty Aero6gen, was a 24 volt wonder, it had survived over 100 knots of wind before, in Hout Bay (South Africa) and 5 years of cruising in the Caribbean, Bahamas, Cuba, and two Atlantic crossings, but here it had no chance as it could not cock to the weather which was coming from directly above. The tail (vertical stabilizer) bent over and then caused the blades to collide with the mounting frame, breaking all of them off at the root.
An Amel Sharky ketch CANOPUS had run aground behind us but was able to motor off the shoal. ARGONAUT had survived and missed us, thankfully. Only two or three of the other 15 boats in the anchorage did not drag their anchors, and the holding is generally good here. Four dinghies flipped and capsized.
The storm went on to wreak havoc through Santa Ponça, continued over to Son Matias, where it removed some communications equipment, Illetes where some boats went ashore backwards, Palma recorded over 100 kts in the gusts, but the official figures remain 86 knots for a sustained period (seven seconds) Unfortunately two deaths were attributed to the storm. One man was killed when a crane blew over and landed on him and a second drowned when the garbage scooping catamaran he was skippering capsized.
Historically September is the month to be careful here in Mallorca. Local wisdom, easy to find in the bars, says that as the first cold fronts arrive over the summer warmed sea, the energy differential causes these "Mini Hurricanes" and that until the sea cools to the mid 70's down from over 86 degrees, the storm risk will continue. If you are going to cruise the Balearic Islands in September, bring chain, lots of heavy chain.