Monthly Archives: July 2024

In my last post I commented on how glad I was that Pandora is in Trinidad and generally safe from hurricanes. As I continue to follow the effects of Beryl, the strongest recorded storm to hit the Eastern Caribbean so early in the season, it has driven home to me something that I have long believed, that it is just not prudent to store a boat anywhere in the Caribbean in an area that is at risk of being struck by a hurricane.

A few days ago I talked to Chris Parker about Trinidad and how safe it is/or isn’t as it relates to a hurricane strike. His comment was that the risk of a direct hit from a hurricane in Trinidad, in spite of warming seas, still remains relatively low. He went on to explain that as Trinidad is so close to the equator that a storm is unable to spin up as the Coriolis effect is so week and absent at the equator itself. As Trinidad lies at 10 degrees north of the equator, it is very rare for a hurricane to be able to sustain itself. And while there can be storms, hurricanes are generally not a threat. However, just short distance north, in Grenada for example, things can be much different.

For a description of this effect, and why hurricanes do not occur close to the equator, check out this link.

Prefer a video example of why?

He went on to say that had Beryl tracked even 30 miles south of her swath of destruction, that Grenada would have seen devastation on the scale that ravaged islands to the north. We have all seen photos of wrecked homes and jumbled boats but nothing could prepare us for some of the images that have emerged. It is worth noting that the big island of Grenada sustained terrible damage less than a decade ago.

I have been looking for footage that gives a good feel for what the storm did to home and boats and came upon a segment from a popular video series, Sailing Fair Isle, produced by a couple that are cruising the world on a Hans Christian heavy displacement cruising sailboat. You may enjoy watching their programs which can be accessed from this link.

I can not say that I have been following them but when I was hot on the trail of the story of what happened when Beryl struck the SE Caribbean, I found one of their segments that seems to capture the impact on the islanders as well as cruisers that found themselves in the eye, literally, of the storm. What follows is a series of screen shots from that post and at the end is the segment that I found so moving.

All of the images that follow are from this segment and are attributed to them and those that they interviewed.

Some years ago we passed Dominica after a hurricane decimated that island and we were struck by the fact that the mountain looked like New England in February, with no green at all. This is what things looked like in Carriacou in the wake of Beryl.

This is what the island looked like prior to Beryl.

It is conventional wisdom that the best place to put a boat during a hurricane is in the mangroves and dozens sought shelter in what was widely believed to be a safe “hurricane hole”. The eye passed right over the island and swept all the boats into a jumble. After the eye passed, all the boats were then swept to the other side of the mangroves. What a mess.

In the video segment just after the storm they included footage taken by a cruiser who was aboard his boat at the height of the storm. It must have been a harrowing experience. Interestingly, the owner is interviewed in he second segment below and his boat is well on the way to being seaworthy again. Sadly, his experience does not represent the norm at this point.

This little pink boat was totaled and in the second video her owner talks about what has happened since this image was taken.

Perhaps the nicest boat that they featured sustained a lot of damage. This image is heartbreaking.

She was raised within a fairly short time and refloated.

She is now in Grenada and undergoing repairs. The owner was interviewed for the second segment and to see the footage of the boat and her condition makes me wonder what it will take to make needed repairs. There is little left in the interior worth saving and that doesn’t begin to describe the condition of the electric and engine systems. It is hard to imagine it ever being right again.

Virtually nothing survived in Beryl’s wake. Even commercial ships were swept up on the beach.

The boats that were on land did not fare any better and just about every one tossed about. I received a report that at least one member of Salty Dawg had their boat there and it was badly damaged.

Catamarans had their own special ending, flipping over from the ferocious winds.

Within days aid began to arrive from nearby islands and Trinidad in particular.

However, much of this aid was directed at the shoreside residents and not the cruisers. And, I have heard that a ship with a crane showed up and was demanding $15,000 just to lift up the damaged boats. As most if not all of the owners were basically self insured, as insurance generally does not cover hurricane damage, this sort of cash payment isn’t realistic for many.

In those cases it comes down to cruisers helping each other, patching things up enough to allow a powerful pump to raise the boats.

There is no doubt that the destruction caused by Beryl will have a profound effect on the yacht insurance business already working to adjust to a changing climate and surely the restrictions on yachts will only get more difficult in the coming years. As careful as owners may be, the cost of insuring a boat, regardless of how focused owners are on keeping their boats safe, will continue to rise.

I do fear what this might mean to the cruising community and their ability to even head to the Caribbean in the coming years.

I encourage you to view these videos, the first filmed a few days after Beryl’s passage and the second taking a look at the salvage efforts of owners who’s boats were damaged in this powerful storm.

Subsequent to their initial segment, they just published a new, and shorter episode, that details some of the boats that have been salvaged and are on the road to recovery. While it is heartening to see the progress being made it is overwhelming to imagine having to address such a mess aboard Pandora.

In the wake of Beryl, it is even more clear that to keep a boat anywhere within the hurricane belt is increasingly risky and only time will tell what effect this will have on cruisers who wish to roll the dice during the hurricane season. 

Pandora has been in Trinidad for two months now and work is progressing well. I have been in touch with Amos, who is overseeing the projects, on a regular basis including weekly video briefs, reviewing the details of what has been done.

All and all, I have been impressed with the attention to detail that is going into the job.

Amos estimates that the jobs will be completed by late August or early September. The work was begun in May so that’s a lot of days and with so many communications, I am confident that they have been working hard to keep the job on track.

The transit of Beryl through the SE Caribbean, not far to the north of Trinidad, has been shocking as we have learned more details of the devastation wrought by the massive storm.

In my last post I wrote about some of the details and showed images of the destruction in the wake of the storm.

Cruisers have really stepped up and are delivering relief supplies to the stricken islands.

And at least one large yacht has also carried some of the bigger items such as generators.

Years ago when the BVI was trashed, it is rumored that much of the aid, particularly money, did not make it to the intended recipients, which was very unfortunate. It is also difficult to coordinate the arrival of aid from individuals verses more established organizations. I hope that this time things are handled correctly. Clearly, there are a lot of well intentioned people doing their best to help.

I can only imagine how long it will take for the islands so severely damaged to get back on their feet.

This video is by a local vet in Carriacou who has been posting videos regularly. His latest post illustrates that ten days after Beryl trashed the island, cleanup is well underway but that there is so much that will need to be done to get the islands back to some semblance of normal. As I look at the footage of the damaged boats, I can not imagine how there will be an infrastructure in place to repair them any time soon, much less get them back into the water.

I heard about a Salty Dawg member’s boat that “mostly” survived the storm but the hull was punctured by the jack stands that were holding it up. And, surrounded by s many destroyed boats, they have no idea how they will be able to get the boat back into the water any time soon.

A friend told me that after many years keeping his boat in the Caribbean, Trinidad actually, his policy was canceled and now he has a new policy that does not distinguish a “hurricane box”. This means that he can go wherever he wants at any time. The bad news is that there is no payout for damage from a named storm, regardless of location or timing and this even applies to a Nor’easter outside of the hurricane season. Simply stated, the insurance companies are happy to underwrite you but if the boat is lost in a storm, you are on your own.

He was told that he could get storm coverage for an extra fee but with coverage already so expensive, any additional fees are likely not practical.

This change, and I expect that it will be more common than not, will surely make storing boats in any area that has even a remote likelihood of being hit, a really bad idea. The fact that Trinidad has only limited storage options suggests that many who want to keep their boats south for the summer will have a tough choice given the history of storms damaging boats in Grenada, traditionally considered fairly safe.

I was curious about why Trinidad has generally been safe from storms and did some digging. The primary reason is the islands proximity to the equator and the inability of storms to develop in that area. While Trinidad is at 10 degrees north of the equator, intense storms do not generally form there. This short video provides some explanation of this effect.

And while Trinidad is rarely hit by hurricanes, there was one notable exception in 1933 when an unnamed hurricane devastated the island. This was an extremely rare event but with warming conditions, who knows. This report is an interesting look at the history of storms in Trinidad.

On the other hand, just 80 miles to the north, the Island of Grenada has been hit a number of times in recent memory, most recently when Ivan passed right over the island of Grenada in 2004 causing enormous damage. This link highlights some of the notable storms to damage the island. That was a long time ago and people forget.

Even though Ivan passed just to the south of the island of Grenada, the damage to Trinidad was not significant. In part, this was because to be hit by the south side of a hurricane is generally nowhere as damaging as the northern quadrant where the wind speed is added to the forward motion of the storm. On the southern quadrant of the storm, the wind speed is subtracted from the forward motion. This means that no matter how close to Trinidad a storm hits, it is not as likely to cause as much damage as it will in Grenada, even though it is less than 100 miles to the south. The physics of the Coriolis effect will not allow it to pass south of Trinidad. It’s just too close to the equator to allow a storm to be sustained that far south.

See this graphic of Ivan’s track when it devastated Grenada. And follow this link to a detailed look at Ivan and the destruction in his wake.

And this newscast clip, broadcast as Beryl approached the eastern Caribbean, is a good explanation of why such a strong storm formed so early in the season.

For those that might wish to keep their boats in a fairly safe place during the hurricane season, there is a question of available space. The fact is that the yards in Trinidad were basically full when I arrived in May and had been so for some time so when nearly 100 boats headed south from Grenada to escape the path of Beryl, there was no space left to be hauled, even if they wanted to. There is clearly an opportunity for someone to open a new yard in Trinidad but there really isn’t a lot of room in the area for expansion.

So, back to Pandora and how the work is progressing. The work is going very well and I am having video tours of what’s going on every week with Amos, who walks me through the details of what has been accomplished to date.

Since my last post the re-coring of the decks is done and the finish coats of epoxy are being applied after the area is fully leveled.

Once the surface was fully faired, a number of coats of primer are applied and then sanded with long boards to be sure that are no dips or raised areas. This is backbreaking work and takes many hours.

I have a video of him using the larger board, the one he is sitting on, but you get the feel for what I am talking about.

After all of the deck areas are fully leveled and match the areas that were not damaged, a layer of fabric and more epoxy will be applied and further faired. By applying another layer to the undamaged deck areas, this will insure that this problem will not recure. When the new decks are fully painted and the cabin top is sanded down and sealed, a non-skid surface will be applied and then sealed yet again with a layer of Awlgrip paint.

After months of work, the decks, cabin top and the entire cockpit and transom will be painted. And, that doesn’t even count all the work being done down below, varnishing and some work on the headliner. And, don’t forget that the entire hull, below the waterline, has been stripped and prepared for priming and two coats of bottom paint.

Oh yeah, and there is a spot on the cockpit floor that needs to be re-cored. All of this adds up to being a huge job and I feel pretty good about how it is going.

All and all, Pandora will emerge in better shape than when she was launched in 2007 and ready for many more years of service.

In the next few weeks I have to decide when I am going to head to Trinidad to inspect the work close up. I expect that this will happen in late August or early September.

When I think about what’s going on with Pandora and try to relate that to those who have lost their boats and the locals that lost their homes on islands where nearly every structure was destroyed, it drives home just how easy I have it.

I never seriously thought about leaving Pandora anywhere but Trinidad and seeing the path of destruction that Beryl slashed through most of the islands between Grenada and St Lucia, is a reminder of just how bad things can get.

Anyway, back to the US and what I am up to right now.

As I write this I am in Onset, MA on the western end of the Cape Cod Canal waiting for a weather window so we can make the overnight run to Rockland. Most of the other boats in the Down East Rally are here with us and waiting out a rainy day. We expect that we will be able to make the run beginning on the morning tide in the Canal and arrive in Rockland on Monday late Monday morning.

The fact that we are waiting for Beryl, or what is left of her to pass, is a sobering reminder of her power when she ripped a swath of destruction from the most eastern parts of the Caribbean, more than 2,000 miles south ten days ago, moving through the Gulf of Mexico, making landfall in Texas where millions remain without power an up to New England.

The wind that we faced for several days in the Gulf of Maine was not all that terrible, in spite of including gusts in excess of 30kts, as it is from the South West. If I was here with Pandora, designed for strong winds, we would likely be on our way. I did hear from a friend who was making the run a few days earlier on a boat somewhat larger than Pandora, who shared that conditions were breezy but manageable.

The problem is that the little trawler that I am on isn’t really designed for “sporty” conditions and George, the owner, isn’t about to test it out. With that in mind, we plan to head north tomorrow when the winds have passed and the seas should be calm again. Not so perfect for a sailboat that needs wind but for us, perfect.

With all that is going on in the Caribbean I am certainly glad that I made the decision to leave Pandora in Trinidad or I might be worrying about what to do about a destroyed boat instead of dealing with more manageable projects to make here perfect.

For now, it’s nice to spend time in Onset, secure from the wind and waves. Not a bad view. I’ll take it.

Over the years I have wondered about the wisdom of keeping a boat anywhere in the Caribbean during the hurricane season.

And, with Beryl breaking records for her intensity and how early in the season she developed, is also making many wonder what the future holds. This link reviews a number of factors that make Beryl an outlier.

To name a few: Beryl was…

1. The strongest July Atlantic hurricane on record with maximum sustained winds of 165mph.
2. The earliest category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record, two weeks sooner than any prior recorded storm.
3. The strongest to ever hit the southern Windwards. Only two other category 4 hurricanes had ever been recorded to hit near Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines.
4. Earliest 150-mph hurricane in any season and the farthest south ever recorded.
5. First June category 4 hurricane. Beryl gained Category 4 intensity in the Atlantic basin. Only three other hurricanes gained Cat. 4 intensity prior to August.
6. Easternmost “major” June hurricane on record as a Category 3 storm this early in the season, roughly 2,000 miles farther east than Alma in 1966.

All and all, this season is forecast to be intense, with many storms expected and to see the path of destruction of Beryl, especially in areas that are not normally struck so violently, is sobering.

So, back to summering in Trinidad. With so many of our friends singing the praises of Trinidad for years we opted to leave Pandora there to get some major work done. Seeing the destruction that Hurricane Beryl has brought to the area has certainly given me pause for thought.

We chose Trinidad as it is the island that has the lowest frequency of hurricanes of any in the Caribbean, with, I think, a single hit by a major storm in 100 years.

Many opt to stay in Antigua, St Lucia and other islands assuming that those areas are fine for a number of reasons like: “the boats are tied down with straps” or “the yard is protected by nearby hills”, or “the odds are that a hurricane will hit a particular island in any given year are low”, or “Well, my insurance company covers my boat during the hurricane season, even in the hurricane zone.” and what now seems like the best one “Well, Grenada hardly ever gets hit with a hurricane”. Sadly, Beryl proved that otherwise with extreme and widespread damage.

The problem with these arguments are that “you just don’t know” and in any given year a hurricane can strike just about anywhere in the eastern Caribbean with perhaps the notable exception of Trinidad but with warmer sea temperatures, it’s possible that this will change in the future.

One of my friends says “well, any given island may only get hit once in a decade so the odds are in your favor.” Not sure I buy this logic as I think about it this way. Imagine that you could cross a busy street without looking and that the likelihood was that you’d only be struck and killed on one out of ten crossings. I doubt that you would take that risk and yet cruisers leave their boats in yards that have a history of being hit by major storms assuming that the odds are in their favor.

Many cruisers choose to summer in Grenada in the water as it is a quick overnight run to Trinidad if things look iffy. This AIS screen shot taken the day before Beryl hit the island. I am told that upwards of 100 boats ran south in advance of Beryl and took shelter in Trinidad and most are still there with many loading up with donated supplies to take back to Grenada and the islands to the north that sustained the worse damage.

Some choose to roll the dice and stay put, assuming that they can keep their boat off the beach. I don’t know exactly where this photo was taken but a day like this would not be my first choice.

For those that stayed in Grenada, a place that many feel is safe from most hurricanes, and did not head south to Trinidad, and some didn’t fare so well.

And while many consider Grenada to be safe during the hurricane season, the northern part of the island sustained a lot of damage but noting quite compares to the hit that nearby Carriacou took. This video illustrates a level of destruction that is hard to imagine.

And, this is certainly not the first time that the eastern Caribbean has been faced damage of this magnitude. Let’s not forget how things ended up for the Moorings fleet in the BVI following Irma, in spite of being well prepared to weather a storm. When a major storm makes a direct hit there is really nothing that can be done to keep the infrastructure intact. Think sustained winds of nearly 200mph,

A common reason that cruisers feel safe in leaving their boat within the hurricane zone is that their boat will be tied down with heavy straps, designed to keep the boat upright. Here is a screen shot from the video above illustrating how little good strapping down a boat does when conditions are this severe.

In fact, the reason that the Salty Dawg Rally goes to Antigua was the result of the last major storm to hit the BVIs. I had campaigned to move the rally to Antigua as a better option for the rally as the island has more resources and entertainment options for the Dawgs than the BVIs but it wasn’t until the BVIs were so terribly damaged that the switch happened.

The following year the rally was split between Antigua and the BVIs but that was the last year and now Antigua is the destination and most everyone seems happy about that decision.

I do worry about what would happen if a major hurricane were to strike Antigua and the effect that it would have on the destination of the rally. It is sobering to see the destruction that has occurred on islands that have suffered direct hits over the years and how long it has taken to rebuild. Given the fact that Barbuda, only 25 miles from Antigua was flattened the same year that the BVIs were hit, I suppose that it is only a matter of time until something terrible happens in Antigua as well.

With rising sea temperatures, this year and into the future, it is likely that the region will see a greater number of more powerful storms.

With insurance premiums increasing so much over the last few years, I am also assuming that seeing such a powerful storm so early in the season will lead to further increases in what it costs to insure cruising boats.

In spite of the terrible destruction, the cruising community has really stepped up and many boats that took shelter in Trinidad will be heading north in the coming days to deliver supplies to those who have lost so much.

Many business in Trinidad have donated supplies.

Here are some of them, under cover, at Powerboats Marina in Trinidad, ready to load.

Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that the frequency and strength of storms will be increasing and it is safe to say that storing your boat on any island within the hurricane belt is a gamble, perhaps now more than ever.

For now, unless you live aboard and are able to make a run for it when a storm is heading your way, Trinidad seems like the best option and hopefully changing weather patterns will not rob us of what appears to be the last place for safe storage.

Is your boat safe from a hurricane? Time will tell but for sure it has a lot to do with “location, location, location”