Grenadines: Riding a Storm

Riding a Tropical Storm in the Grenadines

Contributed by Adrian and Mary Power, s/v Windhover II | August 2004

Back from a trip to the Grenadines out of Canouan, we had the pleasure of giving the holding in Tobago Cays a good solid test. Tropical Storm Earl blew up to 60 knots, and was kind enough to do it in daytime (commenced approx. 0200 so daylight followed shortly afterwards) so we could be exactly sure what was going on around us. There were 20 boats in the Cays for the party. All held superbly. We put down our Bruce kedge anchor at 30 degrees to our main CQR. There was not a budge at any wind speed.

Why did I choose the Tobago Keys to ride out the storm, when the Keys could be pretty down the list of good protected anchorage for many sailors..!

The virtues of the Tobago Cays, as I read the situation, regarding anchoring in stormy weather are that:

1. The holding is very good thus getting a good bite on the anchor is very easy
2. The reefs around the Cays break up any large waves coming in so that, all things being equal, one will not be subject to a massive turbulent sea during a storm.
3. During stormy weather, one can expect to have enough sea room to be able to think should one start dragging. If necessary, one could then assist the anchor by motoring against the wind.
4. Being shallow, one can put out one's full anchor-chain gaining full benefit of the scope and thus the benefit of the catenary effect to absorb shock loads from the gusts. During Earl, there was a pretty even distribution of monohulls and multihulls at the Tobago Cays. The only boat I saw shifting location during the night was a Jeanneau 40DS whose inflatable started flipping around the place. She had been anchored amidst quite a number of boats in the approx. lee of Baradel. He moved out and re-anchored in the lee of Petit Bateau.

In the Tobago Cays I prefer to anchor out of the lee of the islands as I've found that being too close to the islands results in a rolly anchorage. I assume the current sweeping around the islands causes the rolling close in. I tend to anchor about mid-way between Baradel and Jamesby, dropping when I've got about 4' beneath the keel.

The Storm Events

I spoke on the VHF during the storm to a guy who I had met at Saltwhistle. He had also decided to leave, after I had. Being in a fast powerboat he could have gone wherever he wanted, but chose to go to the Mangrove. The strongest wind he experienced there during the entire night was 25 knots. We got up to 60 knots in the Tobago Cays. I had seen many boats (10 or so) heading in that direction, i.e. passing in front of Union Island and heading for Carriacou during the late afternoon prior to the storm. Because I had not been to the swamps and was not sure either of holding etc. or of the numbers who might turn up there from further south as well as from the north, I chose to stay in the Cays.

The forecasts I was getting were talking of winds of 45 knots sustained, with possible gusts of up to 65 knots. I was happy that with 2 anchors out we would ride that out pretty comfortably. Later forecasts started talking of winds up to 85 mph, and were unclear as to the direction the eye was taking, so we did have some nervous times until the eye finally passed. As it turned out, Earl passed to the south of Grenada and they got hit with 90 mph winds.

We had been in Saltwhistle Bay when we got word of the coming storm. We had plenty of room there and might have stayed except that a late arrival anchored very close to us, just as we were about to lay out our kedge. It was simpler to move that to argue the toss in the circumstances because the guy made it totally clear by his actions that it was every man for himself: so we went to the Cays and left ourselves loads of room. We could have made it to Canouan to take a mooring, but I prefer being on anchor in a situation like that.

We got a good weather forecast about 5 hours prior to the arrival of Earl from a nearby French boat. They had gotten the forecast from Meteo-France in Martinique via SSB. The prediction of strength, duration and direction of travel of Earl was very accurate. Local forecasts were a bit minimalist, giving location of the eye, very hairy potential extremes of wind speed and bugger all else. Basically - pretty unsatisfactory.

Prior to the event, all the Sunsail boats (3 or 4) in the Tobago Cays weighed anchor and took off. We had heard no VHF communication to them so we assume they got the word via mobile phone from the St.Vincent base as to what they were advised to do. Their departure with no apparent radio communication was a bit disconcerting. One family, who were on a private trimaran, got very worried and telephoned Walter from Union as soon as the first squalls arrived about 0200. He came over around 0230 and took 7 of them to a hotel in Union on his motorboat. That was very brave and kind of him - and probably very risky in the circumstances. They got walloped by a quall on the way over to Union but got away with it. The father remained safely on board the entire night. I had been keeping an eye on the trimaran (as well as the other boats around) during the storm to see how it held, and was impressed by how solid it was. I had noticed no one on board which surprised me, until I got the story from Walter the following morning when buying bread from him.

A Week Later...

A week later we called back to the Cays looking forward to a more peaceful visit. Not quite: we got another Tropical Wave haring across. We had received no forecast of this. Lots of wonderful lightning, bucket loads of rain and the wind gracefully building up to a max of 50 knots. This being a nighttime event starting about 2200 or so, keeping watch was a bit more difficult. The lightning did give us goods regular views of our neighbours however, so we could see all were holding well. We had only our main anchor out for this storm having had no warning of its arrival. Not to worry. The CQR held us really well. Next day, our second last, was beautiful.

So we left the Grenadines with memories of how beautiful they are and with smiles on our faces. Just as it should be:-)