All in all, we made it thru the storm very fortunately, in addition to 'dodging a bullet' in that it didn't come straight in over top of us as a Cat4 like it was forecast to up until just 4-5 days from actual landfall. *That* would have been...
My Ariel and A-30 were anchored out untended (but watched very anxiously...) thru 3 days of winds as high as the mid 50's and perhaps a bit higher, never lower than low 20's, and coming variously from most of the cardinal points in that period of time.
Setup:
1) Ariel was on a 25# CQR w/15' or so chain & rope, and Fortress FX-7 on 30' chain & rope. For chafing prevention, sunbrella was wrapped and lashed onto rode at fairlead on bow.
2) A-30 on a 15kg (33#'s) SST Danforth-type w/5-8' heavy chain and 1/2" rode, and a Fortress FX-23 on plain 5/8". Lost the Danforth and parted one of the strands on the Fortress. I think they chafed each other below the bow where they crossed as the boat swung. Both had same chafe prevention as above.
Both boats were anchored in a spot which is hard sand/mud, with water shallow enough that they were on bottom at low tide, and in perhaps 6' of water at high. Rodes were at least 10:1 length this way, and I figured the boats would be much less likely to drag when spending at least part of every day completely unable to do so. Science, right?
On the A-30, both rodes passed through one fairlead at bow, and I think this is likely the reason that they were able to chafe on each other as they did.
I think that because this problem did not happen on the Ariel, which set up nearly identically otherwise, had the two rodes running thru separate fairleads. It was anchored just 100' away from teh A-30 and, due to its shallower draft, would have been floating more. To me that implies that it would have resulted in more potential for chafing action on the overall gear, yet there was no failure or even indication of the same problem existing.
Other than this, the A-30 did take on some water due to leaks coming from the cockpit floor. This was expected.
And both boats apparently had tornadoes touch down inside of the cabins, somehow...
