Live From The Lantern Queen Riverboat: Banking on The Buoy

Becky Fitzgerald, owner of The Lantern Queen, is submitting occasional blogs during Hurricane Irene, telling the tale of her husband, Carroll, who is manning the ship, which was moved Friday afternoon from its normal mooring at Hutchins Park to the Tydings Park Yacht Basin.

Lantern Queen – 4 p.m., August 27, 2011: Not a whole lot has changed since I talked to Carroll last. The entire crew of the Lantern Queen will be happy to hear that Carroll is starting to think he’s solved a couple of persistant leaks!

When we replaced an air-conditioning unit earlier in the summer, a leak appeared near where the old compressor sat. It’s defied all repairs. This morning, Carroll found some magic substance that seems to have fixed the leaks.

Carroll reports that the is safely moored at the end of Pier 5, and that there seems to be a number of folks riding out the storm on their pleasure boats, moored nearby. Some even had grills going until the rain got too heavy.

Probably the biggest change is the wind speed and direction. The wind is beginning to move from NE to ENE as the storm gets closer (This will make more sense if you look at a radar image of the storm). The wind speed is picking up, now at 16 kts. with gusts up to 25kts. Now, in reality, the Lantern Queen has been out cruising in this kind of weather—not because we want to, but because of a pop-up squall. So, we’re not anywhere near the kind of weather we’ve prepared for yet.

As we were talking, I was reporting the latest data from the NOAA Smart Buoy, and Carroll said, “Yup, we just got one of those gusts. It rocked pretty good.” He went on to say that the lines and fenders seemed to be perfectly placed, holding the boat off the pier, making it a smoother ride.

(The worst rocking the Lantern Queen ever does is when it’s moored. The physics of the boat rocking against the lines tying it to the pier makes what would otherwise be a gentle wave, feeling like violent rocking.)

I mentioned the NOAA Smart Buoy above. If you’re not familiar with it, now’s a good time. It was put into place as part of the John Smith Water Trail, and serves thre purposes. It provides tourist information, historic information about Capt. John Smith, and most importantly, a wide range of real time data from it’s location midway between the and the Perry Point Mill.  You can access the Susquehanna Buoy and it’s most recent information at www.buoybay.org. You can also phone the buoy at 877-buoy-bay, or download a free smart phone app from the website. Our crew counts on the buoy for wind speed and direction (The water current speed isn’t much help, because the buoy is located so close to the Susquehanna Flats that there’s never any real current near the buoy).