BACK ON BOARD POST IRENE

What was unnerving for me as Hurricane Irene approached was the fact because of a work commitment I would be 250 miles away when the storm hit. Not only that, I would not be getting back to the boat for a least two weeks afterward. Happily, I got word fairly soon after the storm had past that BIANKA had survived. That was a relief knowing the boat was OK and my hurricane prep had worked. I tried a few things before I left the boat. Some ideas worked and some ideas need improvement. This is a picture of how I left things at BIANKA's bow before I left the boat:

You can see the anchor has been removed. Two lines the primary and backup are attached to the mooring and are free.  Not easily  seen is the anchor chain on the right roller that drops straight down below the surface of the water and is attached to the mooring chain at a different link than the lines above.  I've already expressed my how I like to have cable ties on board for all sorts of handy reasons. Here I am using them to hold some split tubing in position as some anti chafe protection. Also note I am using the cable ties through the holes in the bow rollers. The plan being to prevent the mooring lines from jumping off the rollers during the storm. I'm using cable ties in the belief they would not chafe the lines like a metal screw would. The cable ties worked as planned or at least the mooring lines never jumped out of the bow rollers. Some of my other ideas not so good.

Returning back to BIANKA after two weeks I found this scene:

Things got pretty twisted forward of the bow rollers. What I don't know is when this all happened. Was during the hurricane or was it during the two weeks of the boat spinning around the mooring before I returned. Both the chain and my anti sail drogue line got twisted up in the mooring lines too.  I did not notice any serious chafe on the mooring lines but, next time I hope to come up with a better plan and hopefully I won't be so far away should another hurricane approach.