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November 4, 2008
 Another tournament and another storm By IRENE NOLAN There is another surf-fishing tournament on Hatteras this week, and another coastal storm is heading for the Outer Banks. The Cape Hatteras Anglers Club Invitational Tournament begins on Wednesday with team registration and an evening open house. Team fishing days are Thursday and Friday. The Bob Bernard Individual Tournament is scheduled for Saturday morning. It is open not just to fishing team members but anyone who wants to fish. Registration is required. Larry Hardham, president of the Anglers Club, said that 120 teams with six members per team will be fishing in the tournament. The tournament is thought to be the largest on the East Coast, and is the second oldest surf-fishing tournament on the coast, right after the Nags Head tournament. Hardham said the tournament has been held every year since 1958 with the one exception of 1990. That was the year that a ship dredging in Oregon Inlet slammed into the Bonner Bridge in high winds and knocked out part of the span. The accident happened about a week before the tournament, and traffic to and from Hatteras was limited to emergency ferries for a time. This year, as team members start heading to Hatteras, the weather is not cooperating. “We’re hoping for the best and trying to prepare for the worst,” Hardham said. The worst case scenario for the tournament involves two concerns. The first is that high winds and heavy seas could cause overwash that could close Highway 12 and prevent teams from getting here. The second is that heavy surf on the east-facing beaches could send high tides up to the dunes, making it impossible to fish on those beaches. The teams in the Anglers Club tournament fish on beaches from Rodanthe to Hatteras Inlet. Each of the four fishing sessions – morning and afternoon over two days -- has 60 teams stationed north of Cape Point and 60 teams to the south. The teams move to a different location for each of the sessions, and in two days, Hardham said, each team will fish north and south of the Point at one high and one low tide. Hardham and others from the Anglers Club drove the beaches on Sunday. He said they were all wide and looked good for fishing. Now he and other tournament officials are worrying about the stormy weather that has plagued other surf-fishing tournaments this fall. The Hatteras Village Civic Association’s annual surf-fishing tournament was ended after the first of four sessions when the National Park Service closed seashore beaches for the approach of Tropical Storm Hanna in early September. A coastal storm the last weekend in October almost caused the cancellation of the annual Red Drum Tournament, sponsored by Frank and Fran’s tackle shop in Avon. That storm closed Highway 12 for the better part of two days and sent an oceanfront house in Rodanthe crashing into the surf. Continuing high seas in the days after that storm had Frank Folb thinking he should call off the tournament. He didn’t. The seas calmed down, and the tournament was a success. So now it’s the Anglers Club’s turn to fret. Today – Tuesday -- has been very windy with heavy rain on Hatteras – more than three inches in the 24 hours ending early this morning. And it keeps on raining. Winds were gusting this morning up to about 50 from the east, but are somewhat lower this afternoon, steady winds in the mid-20 knot range with gusts up to 40. Today’s high winds have been caused by a pressure gradient between high pressure to the north and a low-pressure trough off the Carolina coast. Overnight a coastal low will form to the south, off Florida, and move slowly north, forecasters say. That will bring more high winds, beginning late tonight and extending into Wednesday. On Tuesday afternoon, the National Weather Service office in Newport, N.C., issued a high wind advisory for Hatteras and Ocracoke. Winds could be east at 30 to 40 mph with gusts to 50, the forecasters said, and 25 to 35 mph with gusts to 45 on Wednesday. The coastal low is not a classic northeaster, said Franklin Rosenstein, a forecaster with the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center in Maryland, which prepares short- and medium-range guidance on such issues as temperatures and precipitation probabilities. He also owns a condo in Hatteras village, so he keeps a close eye on the Carolina coastal weather. Rosenstein said the low will be a “hybrid” system that still could develop subtropical storm characteristics as it moves over warm Gulf Stream waters, which could further enhance the winds on Wednesday. When the low moves past the Outer Banks late on Wednesday, winds will shift to the northwest – with a possibility of some soundside flooding. By Thursday, Rosenstein said, the low will be off the Virginia capes, though the weather will still be windy on Hatteras. Sandy Sanderson, director of Dare County Emergency Management, said he feels confident that there will not be any significant ocean overwash. “The tides are extremely low, even at high tide, this time of year,” he said. However, he added that he does have some concerns about soundside flooding when the winds shift to northwest. Meanwhile, Hardham hopes that Highway 12 will remain open and that the seas will calm down enough that the fishing stations on the northern beaches won’t be overwashed. “This type of weather just makes a tournament, a tournament,” he said. FOR MORE INFORMATION To find out more about the tournament and keep up with the results, go to http://www.capehatterasanglersclub.org/ |
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