Brett asked for our stories. Here is ours from last Saturday's race. Allen and Karen Findley on a Hobie 16.

My wife Karen and I were trying to get back to Sailboat Beach when the storm hit. We had just finished the race and were heading back when the extreme ferocity hit. Waves were at least five feet high and near hurricane force winds were blowing. There was a cove on our left and my wife yelled to go in there. The main sheet got tangled and I could not let it out more. We turned into the cove, Rainbow Bay, and the broad-lake wind propelled us at a terrific speed for a while. Then the shadow of the mountain protected us. We got to shore where there were trees next to a 10 foot bank. We quickly got the main sail down. Then, with just the jib up, the wind blew us back out in a lake a little and a very strong gust capsized the boat and we were thrown into the water. The wind had violently changed direction several times.

Karen swam to shore and I followed the boat, which was blown into shore again. I managed to get the boat roped to a tree and got both sails off the boat and rolled up. We were very cold as it took a while to get that done. We scrambled up the bank and some people were there to help us. We walked along a path back to the pavilion and hung out in a bathroom before we were herded into a waiting ambulance with several other folks. They had us strip off most of our clothes and gave us warm blankets. We were glad we had bathing suits which we kept on.

When I got warmed, I ran back down to our boat and got it turned back over so it was upright again. The storm had passed by this time. We had been in the ambulance getting warm for a time while the storm raged.

I had to get back into the water to right the boat, but I got that done fairly quickly. I lashed it to a tree and went back to the ambulance. The ambulance then took several of us back to our cars. We then got changed into dry clothes and went back to get our boat.

Some nice people, a big extended family that had rented the pavilion in Rainbow Bay, helped me get our boat back to shore by the pavilion. There is no boat landing there, so several of the men and I picked up our boat and carried it to the trailer. It weighs about 400 pounds. They were very kind to us. They had two Lasers on the lake when the storm hit themselves.

When we came into the protected cove, we could look out and see the broad part of the lake with the waves roaring, the spray fierce on top of the waves. We got out of that with no damage to our boat or us. We got very cold, but not nearly as bad as some. We were very, very fortunate. It was a miracle that no one lost their life. We salute those who rescued us.