Inspected Touche' yesterday for Hurricane Sally damage. I had to carefully crawl out to the boat because the finger pier was tilted at a severe angle.
I have pics here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Rk6i50p4VrCkSDg6MJK7MCduDyZHRnGW?usp=sharing No serious structural damage. Some serious dock rash on both sides. Genoa trashed. It was only 20 years old. :) Three stanchions bent or damaged. Scratches on bow and on bow casting from contact with the dock box. The dock box lost. It was destroyed. Touche's anchor, which is normally on a pulpit mount, was laying in the bottom of the dock box. See pic "Dock Box 1". The most serious damage was loss of my beloved Force 10 small log grill. However, I suspect it is on the bottom under the stern. A quick swim may recover it. I have filed with my insurance. The claim is progressing. The most surprising thing was the damage to the floating pier. The finger piers were all tilted at severe angles. Here's the strange thing. Touche' shares a double slip with a 37 foot power boat. There was contact between the two boats. Both were tied well to their finger piers. The power boat was UPWIND of Touche' during most of the storm. Look at pic IMG_2514 which shows where the power boat's finger pier was connected to the main pier. I suspect the finger pier may have separated from the main pier and shifted downwind enough to allow the contact. It's really hard to tell. Touche's starboard bow line was broken. It had properly placed chafe protection and the wave action during the storm was not severe. The marina is well up a bayou. The port bow line showed no significant signs of chafe. I suspect the starboard bow line couldn't handle the load of the power boat. The bow line broke resulting in Touche' being crushed against Touche's finger pier. Also, in the Drive folder you will see a nighttime pic of a large power catamaran, Hayfu II. Note the bow lines attached to the end finger pier. Now look at IMG_2486. That's the finger pier the catamaran was tied to. The catamaran is gone. A dock neighbor told me it broke loose. My marina has 3 docks, each with nearly identically constructed floating piers. Only my pier suffered catastrophic damage. Look at IMG_2492 which shows one of the other docks unscathed. WTF? The marina is also the shipyard where I haul out for bottom and torside paint. The shipyard is giving priority haul outs to their tenants. Which is good because Touche's slip is structurally compromised and no longer provides adequate protection. Would be interesting if the shipyard/marina does a failure analysis of my dock's damage. Did the big catamaran stress the dock and cause it to shift? Did that cause all the finger piers to tilt? All the pilings are still in place. Strange things happen during extreme weather events. For the obsessive, there is a draft Word doc on the Drive which has a bit more detail. -- Dennis C. Touche' 35-1 #83 Mandeville, LA
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