Kitsilano residents came out in droves on Thursday morning after heavy overnight winds swept at least five sailboats ashore, leaving them scattered and broken along the edge of the surf.
Residents, armed with cameras and accompanied by bounding dogs, wandered the beach to survey the damage.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Brent Ash, who lives nearby.
“My boat was anchored by the yacht club and we reset our anchor (after the last windstorm).”
During that storm on April 2, his boat was dragged several hundred feet.
“This is a wake-up call to us people who have a boat out there to make sure your anchor is good,” Ash said.
Sivan Moore was walking her dog nearby when neighbours told her about the washed-up boats.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I didn’t think it would be that bad. So I grabbed my camera (and came down).”
Boats weren’t the only victims of the wind at Kits Beach. Massive branches littered the grass, garbage bins were lying prostrate and real-estate signs were blown off their hinges.
Northwest winds blew to as much as roughly 100 km/h in parts of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
The storm toppled trees onto power lines, cutting electricity to around 7,000 B.C. Hydro customers.
