BBC: Hayling Island Hit By Tornado

I was "asleep" (not) aboard a Tricorn 16 ft weekender just off Thorney Island SC slip during the Fastnet gale which sadly ended in disaster (1979? 80?)....... I could see a Heavenly Twins Cat out of the hatchway, silhouetted against the sky in the dark, going airborne as I clung in desperation to a life jacket (not realising that my crew was hanging on to the other side of it).....we made it through the night, but so ill!

Even many of the cruisers which had been lifted for the winter were removed from and replaced on their trailers by the twister!

Originally posted by gordon1277 Have a look at the Topper at Chichester report for a walk round of the mess left at Mengham Rythe sc. Anybody doubt you should tie your boat down.

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THE moment a tornado ripped through a sailing club has been captured on camera. The 60mph twister scooped up boats and bent trees double as it powered through Menegham Rythe Sailing Club, Hayling Island, for 30 seconds on Sunday morning

To be clear - I was inland in 1987.  The damage there was very different.  Boats were consistently pushed and shoved around by sustained high gusts in 87.  This tornado picked them up and put them down again.  A 400 was thrown from its trolley in to a vision.  The trolley is where it was.  There is no mark in the soft ground between the boats (3 or 4 m).  There is every indication that the 400 caused the vision to capsize when it hit its rig gunnel at somewhere around gooseneck height and then landed on the mast and shrouds just below the spreaders.  Elsewhere a shroud on the stratos has literally cut through the rudder tower and transom on a 2K - that takes kinetic energy not just mass.