Hurricane Ike

Watergate Marina, Pier 5, Would you believe?

Boats everywhere

16 September, by Skipper Houghton

Hurricane Ike was the third-costliest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States and the costliest hurricane in Texas history. It was a Cape Verde-type hurricane, as it started as a tropical disturbance near Africa at the end of August. One September 1, 2008, it became a tropical storm west of the Cape Verde islands. By the early morning hours of September 4, Ike was a Category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph and a pressure of 935 mbar. Ike made its final landfall near Galveston, Texas as a strong Category 2 hurricane, on September 13, 2008, at 2:10 am. Hurricane-force winds extended 120 miles from the center and tropical storm-force winds extended far beyond that.

While we were still waiting for officials to let us enter Galveston Island to see how our newest boat, Natalie L, had fared in the storm, Skipper Houghton posted the following: "The aftermath as of September 16 - Luckily for Ship 502, our boats at Watergate survived the storm with very minimal damage unlike quite a few of the others there. However we have not been able to go see the Natalie L in Galveston due to the whole island being shut down, and we do not know what condition she is in.

Unfortunately, the Nata Bella, the J29 we were hoping to do big boat races on, has, to be quite blunt, sunk.

We also know that the water during the storm was so high the tops of the pilings at Watergate were two feet underwater, but it is now back to normal."