Graham had the bad luck in that one, we were in quite a good spot, but still the intensity of the storm caught us both by surprise. We dragged a total of 300m over 12 hours and it wasn't till I was able to get on deck at dawn and increase the scope to 10:1, all our chain out, that the dragging stopped. In fact she didn't budge an inch as the storm intensified to 70+ knots. Fortunately none of the boats moored upwind of us broke loose, though several had their sails unfurl and flog to shreds.

Also, we're swapping that floating silver rope for decent nylon on our anchor rodes. That floating stuff is a bit of a hazard, because in the calm after the storm it floated up looping around the keel! I was able to untangle it using a bit of genius ;) Were able to retrieve the dinghy undamaged, having spent 2 days on the river bed, then had a kind of pleasant social event, along with Graham, being driven around by one of the friendly waterside residents looking for a new pair of oars.

I naturally assumed NSW has several storms like this a year, but been assured this was a once in 10 year event. Hope so :/

Whew, that sounds a bit excessive, for Broken Bay! I'm glad there wasn't worse damage.

Ashiki and Arion have both survived the massive storm that sunk and stranded many vessels in this region.  Ashiki's dinghy sank with loss of oars and everything else in it, and their second anchor cable is wrapped around their keel but no other damage.  Arion suffered some damage when a 40 foot fibreglass yacht impaled itself on my bowsprit when the winds were blowing 80 knots at 0630 hrs yesterday.  Then it swung around with the rudder fouled on my mooring and the stern was bashing my bows, but I started my engine and when I took the load off the mooring cable the other boat went clear, broad reaching away under bare poles at 8 knots until it grounded on an oyster lease.  I was incredibly lucky (steel is strong!) and only have a couple of bent rails and some lost paint.  Arion gave the other boat a terrible hiding before it went clear.  I plan to sail to Lake MacQuarie in a couple of weeks, slip the boat (which I was going to do anyway) then start heading north.  If I am going to face a Cat 2 cyclone I'd rather be up a mangrove creek!