february 2020 CARIBBEAN COMPAss pAGE 30Big islands have big wind shadows.Weall know them. Those sailors whodespise the fact that their vesselharbors an “iron jenny” that consumesan inordinate amount of acruiser’s kitty for fuel and somehow deflates the sailor’sdream of relying solely on wind power. They strutup to the local watering hole proudly stating that theyused only three litres of fuel for their circumnavigationof the world. Wallowing around for days in the doldrumsand tacking back and forth for hours to gain afew miles on distance made good are hallmarks of theSailing Purist. Not knowing the price of diesel since1970, ghosting up to the anchorage and dropping thehook while the main luffs is, in many eyes, the veryproof of the proficient, if not saintly, Sailing Purist.I understand that and do respect those sailors. TheStreets, the Pardees, the Cornells just to mention afew. Heck, before them, Joshua Slocum, Magellan,Christopher Columbus, they all get my respect.Kalunamoo. In addition, squalls were to be encounteredwith gusts over 30 knots. Our ketch was in itsdesign element. With a small Yankee-cut jib and staysail,reefable main, and mizzen, there is enough sailarea and control options to comfortably handle thewind in these “moderate to strong” conditions. Chrisrecommended that the conditions were best for southboundvessels. We were sailing north.The tall mountains of the islands produce two majorSailingPuristsby Bill WoodroffeBelow: Ghosting along a lee coast under sail.Enjoy the leisure time!Right: The ketch rig gives us a variety of sail options.We would have to sail non-stop to Antigua. Repairsmight take a while but we planned to spend a monththere anyway and we would be with the Dawgs. So, theplanned 12-hour sail from Bequia to St. Lucia turnedinto a 50-hour voyage to Antigua. At least Antigua ispopulated, unlike Gilligan’s Island. Thank heaven mywife, Maureen, didn’t mutiny. Although granola barswere served for dinner in lieu of her normally wellplannedvoyage fare I had no complaints.The wind shadow effect was a problem that defiedsolution. Ghosting around for hours in the shadow,hoping that the current wouldn’t set us on reefs, wasa challenge. But, as any Purist would say, it’s doable,so enjoy the leisure time.We stayed far enough off St. Lucia and Martiniquethat the winds never died completely. We also ghostedalong under Dominica doing three knots. We made uptime crossing over to Guadeloupe as the wind funneledbetween the two big islands. We aimed to be ten milesoff the west coast of Guadeloupe, hoping that the windwould not die completely. Passing the southern end ofthe island the wind clocked around and pushed usalmost halfway up the west side before we had to gonorth. I feared we would be too far west to makeAntigua directly and would have to tack east, somethingI hate!At sunrise we were halfway up Guadeloupe when thewind died completely. Wallowing around for about fivehours, all sails up, drifting with the current (fortunatelyrunning north at about a quarter of a knot), wehad no idea how we would make it to the north end ofthe island. Around 10:00am the air started to moveand a slight breeze came up out of the west. This westerlymorning breeze, due to the effect of the mountains,propelled us north. As we approached the northend of Guadeloupe, the easterly trades appeared, firstheading us and then clocking as we finally left thewind shadow of Guadeloupe behind.My wife and I are not Sailing Purists. There is a reasonthere is a 100-horsepower turbo diesel under thehood of Kalunamoo, our 47-foot ketch of a home. No,it’s not what’s under the hood of a Ferrari, but it workshand in hand with mother nature’s fickle finger ofwind. Getting into port during daylight, avoiding hoursof three-knot sailing, powering the autopilot and SiriusRadio without battery failure are only some of theadvantages it offers. Until it doesn’t.The adventure began after departing Bequia in theGrenadines and heading to St. Lucia, our next port ofcall. We were on our way to Antigua to meet the SaltyDawg rally sailors. Since 2013, we have participated intheir rally several times, sailing back and forth betweenthe US East Coast and the Eastern Caribbean. Thesouthbound November sail can be challenging so wedecided a few years ago to summer in Trinidad butenjoy the friendship of the Dawgs in Antigua. The planwas one overnight sail up from Trinidad to Bequia andthen day sails up to Antigua. On our way north thisyear, we planned to stop at Martinique to take on a loadof French wine and cheese. We could also replace ourrusty anchor chain with new ten-millimetre G43 chain.That would eliminate the rust stains when we anchor.Sailing up the Windward Island chain on the westside of the islands involves a knowledge of the microwindenvironment these mountainous islands produce.The tradewinds, the “strongest of the season sofar,” according to cruisers’ weather guru Chris Parker,were forecast and so we were prepared for some “saltysailing.” These consistent 25-knot winds gusting up to30 are great for sailing, especially for heavy boats likeeffects: a wind shadow on the lee (west) side of theisland and compressed higher winds at the ends of theislands (think of the amusement park ride The Whip).Sailing these islands, one must take these effects intoconsideration. Also, 25-knot winds may not seem likemuch, but 3,000 miles of fetch for a week builds considerableseas between the islands.All was in order until we were in the lee of St.Vincent, the first of five islands we were to pass. Whenthe wind dies the engine is turned on to motor-sailuntil the wind picks back up at the other end of theisland. Long story short — the motor ran fine but thefreshwater circulating pump bearing on it didn’t. Whilesailing up to Bequia we had used the engine for a veryshort time and it did make an occasional sound like abad bearing but I couldn’t isolate it nor was it constant.In Bequia the engine ran fine. However, off St.Vincent it finally gave up the ghost in an engine roomfull of rubber-belt smoke and noise. So much for usingthe engine. We became Sailing Purists.Kalunamoo’s engine also helps us point better, meaningwe can sail closer to where the wind comes from.Without the motor, relative winds closer than 55 degreesto the bow with choppy seas slow the boat to a crawl.Considering this, we eliminated a St. Lucia stop as Iknew we could not make Rodney Bay. The Ste. Anneport call on Martinique was questionable. I thought wecould make Fort de France or St. Pierre but eventuallythat proved not possible either. Scratch Martinique. Nouse trying Dominica, the Saints or Guadeloupe either. Itwould be difficult to get into any anchorage and, moreto the point, what would we do then?We arrived after dark at the entrance to FalmouthHarbor, Antigua, with a light rain squall looming onthe radar. I knew we could enter but was afraid thewind would die between the headlands as we sailedinto the entrance. We would be dead in the waterbefore we reached the anchorage.ABSAR is the Antigua & Barbuda Search and Rescuevolunteer organization. Like the Coast Guard, it servesthe safety issues of boaters in Antigua. I called them afew hours in advance and relayed my concern aboutentering Falmouth. Andreas, a fine fellow, was veryencouraging and helpful. He was tracking us on AIS.But, he said, they don’t provide towing service andtheir rescue boat was not in service as the season hadjust started. Oh! But then he called back and said thatthey would get their boat ready and out to meet usanyway and guide us down the channel. Great! Wecame down the channel and as expected the winddied. They came alongside and did tow us about atenth of a mile to the anchorage area. We cannot sayenough about Andreas and his assistant, truly a greathelp to us and a service that should be supported.So, for two days we were Sailing Purists. The nexttime at the watering hole, Maureen and I can swaggerin, sneer and say, “Yeah, we sailed in wind shadowsand 35-knot squalls; we beat to windward, tacked anddueled the elements; and we didn’t use a drop of dieselrunning up all the Windwards!”In the meantime, we are getting a new pump forthe engine.Bill and Maureen Woodroffe have lived aboard andsailed in the Eastern Caribbean for six years on their47-foot ketch, Kalunamoo.
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