A Boat Hurricane Plan That Actually Protects Your Boat

A complete boat hurricane plan covers eight things:

• Your boat
• Where it normally lives
• Your storm experience
• How will you watch the weather
• Where will you take the boat
• How will you secure it
• Your backup plan
• Who to contact after the storm

Below is what goes in each section. I include examples of the thinking that turns a basic plan into one that actually protects your boat.

Virtually every insurance company that covers a boat in a hurricane zone requires a hurricane plan. Basically, they want to know that you’ve at least thought about what you’ll do if a hurricane threatens the area where your boat is.

And these plans aren’t rubber-stamped. The underwriter has to approve yours. If they aren’t satisfied with it, they’ll send it back for you to revise. Until you have a plan they’ll accept, you won’t have the storm coverage you’re after. Some carriers won’t insure you at all.

It’s easy to treat it as one more bit of paperwork so you can get the policy. But I encourage you to think of it as something more. Your hurricane plan demonstrates how you can give your boat its best possible chance in case of a named storm.

A hurricane doesn’t have to mean disaster for your boat. Our boats took two direct hits over the years. We survived Hurricane Marty in 2003 and Category 4 Hurricane Irma in 2017. In addition we had close passes from at least nine other named storms. Altogether, we had less than $1,000 in damage.

Thinking through each of the items and making deliberate, informed choices is the key. The two most important items are choosing where you’ll put the boat and how you’ll prepare it, but I don’t want to make light of the others.

And frankly, should a storm take aim at you, you’ll be very glad that you have a plan in hand and can just go down the list of things to do rather than have to make any decisions. I was totally unprepared for the first storm that ever hit us (a Tropical Storm in 2003); I vowed that I’d never again not have a detailed plan in place long before a storm hit. Three weeks later, when Hurricane Marty made a direct hit on us, that preparation paid off as we had zero damage.

To me, there is one goal in creating my hurricane plan: to come through a storm unscathed and not need to call on insurance. I created it secondarily to meet the insurance company’s requirements should, I have to make a claim.

The 8 Sections of a Boat Hurricane Plan

If your insurance company provides a hurricane plan form for you to complete, the sections may not be exactly like mine; there may be fewer or additional ones. The sections below comprise the information that I think makes a plan complete. And a complete plan is most likely to (a) be approved by your insurance company and (b) give your boat its best chance.

1. Information About Your Boat

Start with the basic facts that anyone reading your plan would want to know: make and model, water draft, air draft, displacement, and your ground tackle and docking gear.

This section is simple to fill in, but it nudges you to know things that matter a lot later. Your air draft determines which bridges you can pass under on the way to safety. Your water draft decides which hurricane holes you can actually get into.

The numbers aren’t busywork. They are critical to helping the underwriter understand your choices.

2. Where Your Boat Normally Lives

If your boat is based in one place, describe it. Include the address, the type of docks, and anything tricky about getting in or out, such as needing high tide or a bridge to open. Add a map or diagram if you can.

If you cruise, this section looks different because your boat doesn’t have one home. That’s fine. It just means the rest of your plan has to work from wherever you might be when a storm forms.

3. Your Boating Experience

Insurers want to know what you’ve actually done in heavy weather. Have you prepped a boat for a storm before? Did you take a direct hit, and how close did the eye pass? Was there damage? Have you sat through a 50-knot squall at anchor, at a dock, or in a boatyard without dragging or damage?

If you have that experience, say so plainly. It tells the underwriter you’re not guessing.

Similarly, if you have had damage and made a claim, don’t try to hide it. It will be in the insurance company’s database.

If you don’t have actual storm experience, a hurricane prep course is a good way to build that knowledge and show it. My course, Comprehensive Hurricane Prep for Boaters, ends with a certificate of completion that you can attach right to your plan. No guarantees, but it’s evidence that you’ve done the homework, and it can help get a plan approved.

4. How You Will Watch the Weather

Spell out how you’ll know a storm is coming. Which forecasts will you follow, and how often?

If you cruise and rely on the internet for weather, say how you’ll stay connected in a remote anchorage with no marina and no shore power nearby. Starlink? Cellular hot spot? Marina wifi? Any given system can be down, so it’s good to have alternatives.

Our backup? Garmin inReach (satellite-based text messaging) and a couple of trusted friends ashore who will send word if something is brewing.

5. Where You Will Take the Boat

Most hurricane prep articles divide your choices as:

• Haul out and store on the hard
• Tie up in a marina
• Anchor or pick up a mooring in a hurricane hole
• Tie into mangroves
• Run from the storm (to be honest, I’ve never seen an insurance company accept “run” as part of a hurricane plan)

My take: yes, these are the general categories, and there are general pros and cons to each. But far more important are the specific features of each individual option and how those features may help protect your boat (or not).

Analyzing The Results of a Storm

I’ve been analyzing storm damage ever since we were hit by Hurricane Marty in 2003. And my conclusion is that there is no universal hierarchy of “type of location.” Boatyards do not always beat marinas, nor do marinas always fare better than anchoring or tying into mangroves.

In the same storm, one marina can lose nearly every boat in it while another marina less than a mile away comes through with minor damage. The deciding factors are the physical features of the spot.

You have to decide which option is best among those available to you, and then you have to explain that decision to the underwriter in your plan. Including this type of in-depth analysis significantly strengthens your hurricane plan both in protecting your boat and in the eyes of the underwriter. It signals that you truly understand what will give your boat its best chance.

That analysis requires knowing what actually protects a boat in a storm, judging how each spot stacks up, and considering possible failure points. Believe me, there is no location that is 100% guaranteed: you are simply trying to choose the best one possible.

Learning to evaluate locations is a specialized skill, and my course covers it more than any other topic. I think it’s the single most important part of “hurricane prep,” and yet I don’t know of anyone else who has published an in-depth analysis of specific things to look for and avoid. Comprehensive Hurricane Prep for Boaters covers each option in depth, with real storm examples of what survived and what didn’t, and also explains how to weigh the pros and cons of each of the locations available to you. Lots of pictures!

Can You Reach Your Chosen Hurricane Hole in Time?

The other important factor in deciding where to put your boat is whether you’ll be able to get there. Your plan needs to address factors such as how long it will take and whether you have to time the trip with the tide or opening bridges. Do you have a reservation (if so, attach a written copy if available)? If it’s first-come, first-served (such as an anchorage, mangroves, or some marinas and mooring fields), what is your plan to be one of the first arrivals?

6. How You Will Secure the Boat

Here, you describe how you’ll prepare the boat once it’s in position, and I find the easiest way to do it is by attaching a checklist. This does two things:

• Shows the insurance company you’ve thought about what needs to be done, and makes your plan more likely to be approved
• Gives you a list of exactly what to do if a storm is headed for your location; you don’t have to remember anything or even make any decisions. You just go down the list and do.

A third benefit is that it helps you figure out what supplies you need to buy and have on hand. And if you can take a picture of those supplies and attach it to your hurricane plan, so much the better for showing the underwriter that you are prepared.

I’d put creating your checklist second only to your choice of location in importance.

One thing to keep in mind: you need to give enough detail to show you have a real plan, but don’t lock yourself into steps you may not be able to carry out. Your plan is a promise to the insurance company of what you will do, and you do not want to overpromise and underdeliver.

7. Your Backup Plan

Once a storm is forecast for your area, you may find you can’t carry out your hurricane plan, for any one of a dozen reasons. The boatyard’s travel lift breaks down. Emergency management closes an opening bridge so people can evacuate by car. The public transit you were counting on to get out of the mangroves stops running early. The marina where you had a storm reservation suddenly turns all boats away. It happens.

You need at least one backup plan, preferably two.

• You’ll have worked out the second-best option for your boat calmly and in advance, instead of grabbing at something on the spot that might turn out to be the sixth- or seventh-best once you really think it through. A backup chosen ahead of time is a better backup.
• If it’s already in your approved plan, you won’t burn precious hours on the phone requesting a last-minute waiver when the insurance company is swamped with them, and you should be prepping the boat. That time is worth a lot when a storm is bearing down.

Having a backup plan also helps to show the insurance company that you are serious about your hurricane preparedness. And in today’s boat insurance climate, where hurricane claims are the biggest worry the companies have, they only want clients that they consider good risks.

8. Who to Contact After the Storm

Most insurers want the name, address, and phone number of someone who will check on the boat after the storm, take any immediate action needed, and report back. If you won’t be nearby, this should be someone local.

Your Plan Is Binding

Once your insurer accepts your hurricane plan, it becomes part of your policy. If a storm damages your boat and you didn’t follow your own plan, your claim can be denied.

That said, it’s not a reason to follow your plan blindly when conditions tell you it’s the wrong move. Years ago, our insurer required us to be in one of several marinas during Hurricane Marty. Every one of them was 100 miles straight toward the storm, while we sat 5 miles from an excellent hurricane hole. We went to the hole, knowing that if we had damage, the company might not pay (it was impossible to call the insurer for a waiver from our location in Mexico). We came through with no damage. Many of the boats at the marina that the insurer wanted us to stay in were totaled.

Today, if you ever need to deviate like that, call your insurer first and ask for a waiver. You may not get it, and you may not win the argument later. My philosophy is that I have to do what I think is best, especially when it comes to the possibility of death or serious injury if I try to follow the plan. But I also realize that I may jeopardize my insurance coverage. My personal bottom line: I’d rather lose my insurance coverage than my life.

Proving You Did What You Said

Should a storm come your way, take photos and video of everything after you prep your boat.

Go through your plan point by point and document each item. Show that the boat is in the location you specified, then the lines, the chafe gear, the bare decks, and the stripped rig. If you skipped something in your plan, note why.

This is the proof that you followed your plan, and it can make the difference between a smooth claim and being denied coverage.

A Hurricane Doesn’t Have to Mean Losing Your Boat

It’s worth remembering why you’re doing all this. It isn’t really about satisfying an underwriter. The true goal is to never need to contact the insurance company, because your boat came through the storm with no damage.

A hurricane doesn’t have to mean a total loss. It can, when a boat is poorly prepared or in the wrong place. But our two boats came through two direct hits, including a Category 4, with almost nothing to fix. That wasn’t luck alone, though luck always plays a part, and there are never guarantees. It was the sum of a lot of small decisions for those specific boats in those specific waters.

That’s really what a hurricane plan is. Not a form, but thinking through everything to give your boat its best chance.

About the Author: Carolyn ShearlockCarolyn Shearlock has lived aboard for 17 years and cruised more than 14,000 miles, from Pacific Mexico and Central America to Florida and the Bahamas. In that time, her boats came through two direct hurricane hits — Marty in 2003 and Category 4 Irma in 2017 — plus nine close passes, with less than $1,000 in total damage.

She has spent more than 20 years studying why some boats survive storms while others nearby are lost, and refines her approach after every season. She has taught hurricane prep at Cruisers University and through the American Sailing Association, shared boat-securing tips on The Weather Channel, and her hurricane prep articles have been featured on the cover of Blue Water Sailing and in Cruising World.

Carolyn also created Comprehensive Hurricane Prep for Boaters, a full, self-paced online course with lifetime access including annual updates.