Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine - June 2020

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In last month’s issue of Compass, weleft the author standing in the cabin ofhis 41-foot Lord Nelson sailboat,Afaran. Hurricane Hugo was approaching.He had two storm anchors downin Coral Harbor, St. John, USVI. Wouldit be enough?Hurricane Comin’Part Two:Deciding to Stay Aboardjune 2020 CARIBBEAN COMPAss pAGE 22As darkness fell, I was standing in the cabinpondering the worst. Was my boat really ready?Should I stay aboard or go ashore? HurricaneHugo was less than 24 hours away, bearingdown on the islands with 140-knot winds.“The first lesson, when in trouble,” I said outloud to myself, “is to seek local knowledge.” Ineeded to talk to someone.It was 6:00pm; happy hour would be in fullswing ashore at Skinny Leg’s Bar and Grill. Ireplaced the electronics, stowed the tools,grabbed my wallet, jumped into the dinghy andsped ashore.I pulled up a stool next to a burly Kiwi, hiswife and teenage daughter. Derek, I knew. He by David H. Lymanwas the mechanic at Cruz Bay Shipyard. Heknew me and had worked on my boat.“You all set?” he asked. “I saw you found yourselfa sweet spot.” He and his family lived inCoral Harbor, on their 50-foot ketch, HOTTYD(Hold On Tight To Your Dreams). They weremoored on the other side of the harbor from me.I knew Derek was an experienced seaman, so I pumped him for advice.“The winds in this hurricane are supposed to blow over 140 knots,” I said, sippingmy first Red Stripe.“Yup.” A man of few words.“It blew 115 during Hurricane Emily two years ago when I was in Bermuda,” Iadded. “It only lasted an hour, but that was enough for me. If we are going to be innoaaUS NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICEBoats packed cheek by jowl in Hurricane Hole, St. John, USVI, before the storm.140-knot winds for ten to 12 hours, I don’t see how any boat can survive.”“It can be done,” said Derek, slowly, nursing what must have been his thirdRed Stripe.“Are you staying on your boat or going ashore?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine he’dsubject his wife and daughter to a storm this strong for so long.“Stay with your boat,” he said. “Protecting your boat… it’s your responsibility. Justcheck the chafe gear every half an hour. It’s the one thing you can do to ensure youhave a boat the next day.”Hugo’s track wastypical of Cape Verdetype hurricanes.Hurricane Hugo approaching the Lesser Antilles, September 1989.“How can you see anything with the wind blowing a hundred miles an hour?” Iasked. This was the one thing I remembered from Hurricane Emily in Bermuda. Ihad been blinded by the wind-driven spray and rain. “Try sticking your head out thecar window in a rainstorm driving along at 80,” I’d tell friends when I recounted myBermuda story. “Tell me if you can see anything.”—Continued on next pageCall:784.458.4308Marina: VHF 16 or 68 Email: info@bluelagoonsvg.comFuel Dock24 hour SecurityPort of EntryCustoms & Immigration Office - 9am to 6pmElectricity 110V/220v & WaterComplimentary WifiLaundry ServiceSupermarket & BoutiqueCafe Soleil & Flowt Beach BarThe Loft Restaurant and BarIndigo Dive ShopSwimming PoolBeautifully Designed Hotel Rooms
— Continued from previous page“Use a mask and snorkel,” replied Derek. “Crawl forward every half an hour,inspect and adjust the chafe gear. Most of the damage done to boats at anchor or ona mooring during a storm comes from mooring lines that chafe through. How muchscope you have down?” Derek asked.“Two hundred feet on each anchor. The 60-pound CQR on chain. My storm anchor,a 90-pound Fisherman, on two five-eighth-inch nylon rodes.”“That should do it. I’ll be up all night. Same as you, I imagine.”I ordered Derek another Red Stripe, and all four of us tucked into a dinner of conchfritters and fries at the bar.Back on board that night I made the commitment to remain on the boat. Under analmost full moon, I removed the outboard engine and secured it in the cockpit,hauled the dinghy on deck with the main halyard, deflated it and packed it in its bag,securing it to the life raft just ahead of the mast. Then I went to bed. It was 11:00pm.The night was full of dreams — huge waves, pounding surf — the feeling of beingunderwater, rolled around in the surf, left me dazed in the morning. Or might it havebeen the beers from the night before?Sunday, September 17th, 1989The day was still and hot. There was nothing more I could think of that neededdoing. I sat on the foredeck on the rolled-up dinghy and read The Cardinal in theKremlin by Tom Clancy. Boats continued to arrive all morning. Some attempted toanchor in front of me. I sent them away. In the afternoon,high thin clouds began to cover the eastern sky. It was kindahard to contemplate what was about to happen in a fewhours, but the VHF and the land-based AM radio stationswere full of it.Hugo had slammed Guadeloupe that morning, at 1:00am.Winds to 140 miles per hour, 20-foot waves and a two- tothree-foot surge. A dozen people killed. The anticipated pathof Hugo would bring it directly over the Virgin Islands fromSunday evening into Monday morning.“The hurricane is expected to pass between St. Croix andthe BVI as a Category 4 hurricane,” reported the mechanicalvoice on WX VHF. “Winds in excess of 140 knots out to 100miles on the northeast quadrant.” This meant boats anchoredin Cruz Bay would be on the “dangerous side” as the stormapproached. The winds would be rotating counterclockwisearound the eye; the storm’s forward movement (eight to 12knots) would be added to its 140-knot winds, increasing thetrue wind to 150 knots.As the day went on reports came in that Hugo had sloweddown, traveling at six to eight knots. This would lessen thewinds a bit, but extend the time we would be in them. Toughtrade-off.Boats were now anchored all around me in Coral Bay — bigboats, little boats. One 90-footer from Hamilton, Bermuda,dropped a single anchor, and left their sails on and theirdinghy tied off astern. Others dropped only one anchor,packed up and went ashore. Maybe they knew something Ididn’t. If I had my dinghy in the water, I’d have gone over tochat with Derek.By 6:00pm, as dusk arrived, so did the tendrils of wind, theoutriders of the hurricane. At first I thought the roaringsound overhead was low-flying military jets on recon. Then I saw what made thescreaming noise: shafts of wind, tunnels really, no wider than a street, swept downfrom the sky, hit the water at the far edge of the moored fleet, and shot across theharbor, tearing up the water, kicking up spray, knocking boats flat, roaring up thehillside, stripping leaves from the trees, leaving brown wakes in their paths ofsnapped trees and torn-up brush. This went on as darkness fell. I sat on the life raftforward and watched.Then, the rain began, not all at once, but in fits and starts, along with the windthat came and went. I went below and stuffed a can of Dinty Moore into my stomach,put on my foul weather jacket, pulled the hood over my head, and strapped a divemask over the hood to keep it in place. I was not about to leave my bald head unprotected.I would be spending the entire night on the foredeck, crammed in betweenthe windlass and the bulwarks, out of the wind.By 10:00pm we were in it. The winds were east, so the harbor was in the lee of thehills, but the wind reached us. As night wore on the winds crept around to southeast,then south, as the eye of Hugo moved slowly to the west-northwest.Gusts came and went, blowing well over 100 knots.As I learned later, the eye passed directly over St. Croix, 30 miles south of CoralBay. For much of the night, the wind was out of the southeast and south, hoveringbetween 80 and 120 knots, blowing directly into the harbor. As the wind came south,five- to ten-foot swells swept into the harbor. Afaran rose to meet the swells, only toplunge down into the troughs. I was worried we might hit the bottom as some of theswells must have been ten to 15 feet in depth, but the surge had increased the depth.We bottomed out only twice, with a thud.I heeded Derek’s advice and throughout the night remained on the foredeck. I laythere in the dark, the wind shrieking in my boat’s rigging. I noticed it went up an octaveas the wind increased, then back down. The air was full of rain and spray blown offthe tops of breaking waves. A gust of wind hit the boat, she reared back like a horse,stretching out the nylon lines. With my flashlight, I watched one of the two rodes onthe Yachtsman stretch out, then the second line take up the load as it stretched. Thesnubbing line on the anchor chain stretched out, then the chain became taut as theboat was pushed back. All it would take was one weak link to break, a shackle to part,an anchor to break free from the sand and it would be all over.When a gust retreated, I watched in amazement as Afaran was snapped forward. Thetension on the nylon lines relaxed, the boat returned to its original location, the anchorlines hanging vertically off the bow. The stretch of the nylon rodes acted like a rubberband. How much of this could my ground tackle take before something burst?Every so often the night was ablaze with light. On HOTTYD, Derek had fired up hisbig searchlight and he swept the harbor to see what was happening. I raised my faceover the gunnel and followed the light. With each sweep fewer and fewer yachtsremained at anchor, more and more of them were piled up on the beach.All night Derek and I kept vigil, and a good thing. The rodes and snubber line thatran over the bronze rollers on Afaran’s bowsprit had been working and a nut at oneAfaran, my Lord Nelson 41 cutter, at anchor in more tranquil times. During ten yearsof ownership, I rode out three hurricanes aboard this boat, then lost her in HurricaneMarilyn in 1995.end of the roller shaft had fallen off. Every 15 minutes, I’d crawl forward, hang outover the bowsprit and bang the shaft back into place with a hammer. If I’d not beenthere, the shaft would have worked its way out, the rollers would have jammed, andthe lines would have chafed through.Every hour or so I crawled on all fours back to the cockpit to check the wind speedand barometer. Steady at 100 knots. As I tapped the barometer glass, the needlewould jump down — the hurricane was still advancing on us.Around 2:00 in the morning as I was standing at the galley drinking a glass ofwater, a blinding flash of light and a simultaneous loud CRASH startled me. Thetransformer on the pole by the beach had blown? No, lightning had struck my masthead,blowing out the VHF antenna and the wind-speed indicator, now locked at 90knots. But I didn’t discover that until the next morning.Back on deck, it was 4:00am and things were at their worst. Derek’s spotlightrevealed that most of the boats that had been anchored in the harbor were missing.The 90-foot Bermuda yacht was ashore, having taken two others with it. I tucked myhead back down as the wind shrieked overhead, tearing at my foul weather jacket.—Continued on next pagejune 2020 CARIBBEAN COMPAss pAGE 23Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou, Grenada, West IndiesBoatyard services with 40 ton travel liftMarine fuel dock: gasoline and diesel, engine oilCustoms & immigrationConvenience store & chandleryMoorings & accommodationLunches and pizza night at the Iguana caféCarriacouMarine.com 473 443 6292
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Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine - June 2020

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