A sheltered anchorage is a good place to start preparing for a hurricane. Then there are the questions of what will happen when the wind shifts, and not only whether your ground tackle will hold, but whether the anchors of neighboring boats will as well.

I had a canvaswork sequel planned for this space this month, but hurricanes Katrina and Rita compel me to weigh in now rather than later on the subject of hurricanes and sailboats. In short, both of these are wakeup calls for everyone living or playing near the coast. I bring some expertise to this subject since I have had the geographic misfortune of experiencing the eyes of three—yes, three—hurricanes in the last 12 months. One of those was Ivan, a Category 4 hurricane that did Katrina-like damage to much of Grenada. Some of the 600 sailboats in Grenada at the time survived. Some did not.

What can you do to help your boat survive a hurricane? More than you might think. And less than you might think.

At Home For most readers of this page, and for most sailboat owners in general, the boat at risk will be located on a mooring, at a dock, or in a marina. Here is the short list of actions you should take when a storm threatens.

Ignore the track and focus on the cone. Hurricane forecasting has improved dramatically in the last decade or two, but if these last two hyperactive years have taught us anything, it is that the storm almost never hits where the predicted track of 48 or 72 hours crosses the coast. If you are inside the cone, you are just as likely to take a direct hit as the place up or down the coastline where the predicted track crosses. If you are in the cone, prepare as if your boat is at ground zero—because it is.

Struggle against denial. We all tend to believe that nothing really bad will happen to us. That makes us say or think “It will turn; it won’t come here.” Snap out of it! The instant your location falls within the cone of uncertainty, initiate your preparations. If you start too early, all that is lost is the time you spend. Start too late and at best your options shrink. Perhaps to zero.

Get away from hard surfaces. Leaving your boat tied to a solid dock when a hurricane is approaching is like hiring a homicidal maniac to baby-sit. A concrete dock will chop up and bury your boat. If there is no place to move your boat—an all-too-common plight in many coastal areas—educate yourself now on how to rig a web-like scheme of dock lines that will keep your boat away from the dock and still allow it to rise 10 feet or more with the storm surge.

Chafe guard your chafe guard. Do not underestimate the frantic motion your boat is going to experience. Anywhere a dock or mooring line can rub against anything, it must be protected with tough hose fixed to the line so that the guard cannot slip out of position and so that the line does not chafe inside the guard. A second larger hose fitted over as a second level of protection is not overkill. After a storm, virtually every boat on the beach will be trailing frayed lines. Careful chafe-guarding can make the difference.

Minimize fetch. Can you move your boat up a river or into a land-locked lagoon? It is not the wind but the water that poses the largest threat. The less potential for wave action, the better your boat’s chances of survival.

Haul out. Above the surge level, there is no wave action. Trailerable boats should be removed from the water and taken far inland. Larger boats will have better statistical odds of coming through the storm with minimal damage if they are on the hard. However, you must make sure that your boat and those around it are properly supported. That means at least one stand per side for every 10 feet of boat length, with opposing stands rigidly attached to each other. Stand pads should be located at bulkheads or other perpendicular features, not on unsupported spans of the hull.

Minimize windage. At the very least, you must strip your boat of all canvas and all sails, without exception. Shredded roller-furl headsails are epidemic after every hurricane, and not only is the sail lost but it often drags the offending boat and other boats around it to their deaths. If insurance companies refused to pay for hurricane damaged sails—damage that by definition is due to negligence—this kind of irresponsibility would surely be reduced.

The best bet is to put down as much scope and as many anchors as possible.

Aboard or abroad If you live aboard or you are away from your home waters, all of the above actions still apply, but you may very well be faced with entrusting your boat to her own ground tackle. With that possibility in mind, you should have a true storm anchor aboard, which I will define as an anchor that is at least three sizes larger than its manufacturer recommends for your size boat. If you put down an anchor powerful enough to hold your boat, if you adequately chafe-guard your rodes and/or snubbers, and if another boat does not drag down on you, your boat stands a good chance of survival. You are two-thirds in control of these three issues. You can influence the third by careful consideration of where you choose to anchor.

Go where the hurricane isn’t. Despite the fact that all of the cruisers in Grenada had repeatedly sailed from island to island through the Antilles, with Ivan bearing down last year less than a dozen boats sailed away from Grenada to safer haven. No one that stayed thought afterward that they had made the better choice. When Emily followed a similar track this year, exceedingly few Ivan veterans adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Harbors emptied days in advance. If you have early enough warning, the best strategy is to get out of the way. If you are going to take you and your boat out of the cone, do it as soon as it occurs to you. Ask yourself what happens if your engine quits? Be certain you will have sufficient time and wind to sail to safe harbor. Going to sea might be a viable strategy for an aircraft carrier, but it is exceedingly high-risk behavior in a cruising sailboat.

Work out the expected wind direction. If the eye passes north or east of you, the wind will back—from west to south or from north to west respectively. If the eye passes to the south or west, the wind veers from north to east or east to south. Use this to pick an anchoring spot that puts land in front of you for the worst of the storm, always keeping in mind that your boat will be only as secure as the ground tackle of the boats that will be forward of you as the storm passes. Tying the boat into mangroves is a tactic used successfully by island fishermen, and if your wind direction prediction is accurate, it has the additional advantage of ruling out upwind boats.

A Travelift may be the best hurricane strategy yet, provided there are sufficient stands holding the boat up, have the appropriate sized pads and windage has been reduced to a minimum.

Put down everything. Anchors don't do any good on deck. Any plan to lay out a "reserve" anchor during the storm is a loser bet. Get every anchor you have over the side on the longest scope possible. The "ideal" hurricane mooring is three storm anchors set at 120 degrees to each other. (After the storm they may very well be in a straight line.)

Get off the boat! Do all you can well before the storm arrives, then seek shelter ashore, even if that means knocking on the door of a perfect stranger. Never, ever let anyone convince you that they saved their boat by staying aboard. When wind strengths reach triple digits, there will not be a single helpful thing you can do. The fate of your boat is sealed. So is yours if you are aboard.

In the end, dumb luck plays a role that increases with the Safir-Simpson number. You can do everything right and still lose your boat. But maximizing your preparation maximizes the odds of finding it after the storm right where you left it. You will regret doing any less.