For the Crabby-Ian dwellers. Early hurricane season

[Rum_Pirate]

 

[Rum_Pirate]

View attachment 158482

 

[Deleted member 478]

It's looks like it is losing momentum and will be nothing more than a Tropical Storm

 

[capnsensible]

Martinique might take a hit?

One behind it recurving towards Bermuda, mebbe?

 

[Kelpie]

Pretty busy here in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou.
Might try the mangroves.
Pros and cons?

 

[Deleted member 478]

Pretty busy here in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou.
Might try the mangroves.
Pros and cons?

Check it out in your dinghy first. And check depths as far as possible. Or, IMHO, head south to Hog Island. Roger's Beach Bar is very social

 

[Rum_Pirate]

Pretty busy here in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou.
Might try the mangroves.
Pros and cons?

If (if it has one) the center goes ABOVE you the wind will come in the following directions:
1 from north
2 then from West
3 then from South

If the center goes OVER you the wind will come in the following directions:
1 from north
2 then very still (this is the eye passing over you, do not go outside)
3 then from South

If the center goes BELOW you the wind will come in the following directions:
1 from north
2 then from East
3 then from South

 

[Bajansailor]

@Kelpie Windy (www.windy.com ) has the eye passing just north of us this afternoon - you are not going to get much in Carriacou, but there will be south winds later.
It might then be easier to go 'around the corner' to L'Esterre Bay (which is reasonably well protected from the south) rather than going into the mangroves?

Re Tyrrell Bay being busy, it is pretty full of pink Marinetraffic blobs alone, not to mention there must be many other boats without AIS transmitters there.
MarineTraffic: Global Ship Tracking Intelligence | AIS Marine Traffic

We currently have about 15 - 20 knots from the NE, pretty much on par with what Windy is saying.

 

[Rum_Pirate]

Keep yourselves and your boats safe

 

[Kelpie]

@Kelpie Windy (www.windy.com ) has the eye passing just north of us this afternoon - you are not going to get much in Carriacou, but there will be south winds later.
It might then be easier to go 'around the corner' to L'Esterre Bay (which is reasonably well protected from the south) rather than going into the mangroves?

Re Tyrrell Bay being busy, it is pretty full of pink Marinetraffic blobs alone, not to mention there must be many other boats without AIS transmitters there.
MarineTraffic: Global Ship Tracking Intelligence | AIS Marine Traffic

We currently have about 15 - 20 knots from the NE, pretty much on par with what Windy is saying.

ECMWF and GFS have just fallen in to agreement, both showing that we will switch from N'ly to S'ly without any meaningful W'ly element. Which is very good news, because we are totally open to that direction.
Still a few boats moving around here but gradually slowing, I think most of us have decided where to stay.
There's one yacht that spent the entire morning doing laps, looking for a spot, and even he has finally made a decision

 

[franksingleton]

I hesitate to try to teach grannies, etc, but a couple or three comments.

First, some of you are forgetting that there are really only 2 sources of NWP models but many routes to get the same information. Passageweather is a good presentation but the main mode; the GFS is the same as the GFS on Windy, Ventusky, XyGrib, PocketGrib etc.

Secondly, all NWP models smooth their output so that effective resolution can be no better than 50 km for the ECMWF and nearer 70 for the GFS.

Third, You may, or may not, be aware that the NOAA makes available its National Digital Forecast Database model on a 0.05 degree grid out to 5 days. Saildocs provide it on that grid.

And, of course, it goes without saying that NHS Miami are the real experts on hurricanes.

Saildocs has a great service that is economical to use when bandwidth might be limited or roaming charges too high.

Send an email to query@saildocs.com with text =

send ndfd:10n,30n,50w,90w|0.05|0,3..120|
send ECMWF:10n,30n,50w,90w|0.4|0,6..240|
send gfs:10n,30n,50w,90w|0.25|0,6..240|

This should open with most viewers, eg Povketgrib, Weathertrack, Sailgrib on tablets and XyGrib on a laptop. NDFD should give better short term detail but still only a 25 km effective resolution.

There is a page on all the Saildocs GRIB, including RTOFS at SailDocs Models - Franks-Weather - The Weather Window

If anyone uses the NDFD, I would be interested to know how you find it. Saildocs also provides HRRR.

 

[Rum_Pirate]

 

[capnsensible]

Good luck to you all, hope it loses its identity as some forecasts show.

 

[Kelpie]

Sitting here in Carriacou with sustained 30kt+, lots of people dragging around us.

I'm really surprised by some people's behaviour. Hardly anybody brings their anchor to the surface after dragging, they just seem to be hoping it will catch again. How do they know they haven't picked up a car tyre? And at some point somebody is going to trip someone else's anchor.

One guy was having a lot of trouble, turns out he had a second anchor down. Keep it simple.

Another two boats became entangled, lots of clashing rigging until a big RIB was able to separate them.

And I just watched a runaway dinghy going through, it came within reach of another boat but instead of trying to grab it he just punted it away with his boathook

Hate to think what it would be like in 50kt. So far we haven't seen anything worse than we get on an average summer cruise back in Scotland

 

[Rum_Pirate]

Sitting here in Carriacou with sustained 30kt+, lots of people dragging around us.

I'm really surprised by some people's behaviour. Hardly anybody brings their anchor to the surface after dragging, they just seem to be hoping it will catch again. How do they know they haven't picked up a car tyre? And at some point somebody is going to trip someone else's anchor.

One guy was having a lot of trouble, turns out he had a second anchor down. Keep it simple.

Another two boats became entangled, lots of clashing rigging until a big RIB was able to separate them.

And I just watched a runaway dinghy going through, it came within reach of another boat but instead of trying to grab it he just punted it away with his boathook

Hate to think what it would be like in 50kt. So far we haven't seen anything worse than we get on an average summer cruise back in Scotland

Amazing with only 30+knots.

Normal winds in the Caribbean can be around 20+knots.

 

[BobnLesley]

Pretty busy here in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou.
Might try the mangroves.
Pros and cons?

If your daft's shallow enough to get into the inner/northerly pond at Tyrrel Bay (about 1.65-1.7m when we were there) it's brilliant. Boats drawing >2m were scraping into the front of the southern pool, though disconcertingly, a couple of BIG steel fishing boats bowled in and pretty much dumped them there. If either of those had come adrift it would've been unpleasant; that said, I'd still choose Tyrrel over Hogg Island.

Don't worry about finding your way in, the locals/regulars will show you the best route; definitely get one of them to helm you through to the inner pond.

 

[Kelpie]

And, as predicted, one utter clown motoring around with his anchor hanging deep did snag another boat. I watched his anchor slide right up the chain until it hit the other boat's bridle, then the two of them headed downwind together, clotheslining a third boat along the way. Absolute carnage.
Fortunately the offender seems to have gone away to anchor at the back where he can't cause any more damage.

 

[Kelpie]

If your daft's shallow enough to get into the inner/northerly pond at Tyrrel Bay (about 1.65-1.7m when we were there) it's brilliant. Boats drawing >2m were scraping into the front of the southern pool, though disconcertingly, a couple of BIG steel fishing boats bowled in and pretty much dumped them there. If either of those had come adrift it would've been unpleasant; that said, I'd still choose Tyrrel over Hogg Island.

Don't worry about finding your way in, the locals/regulars will show you the best route; definitely get one of them to helm you through to the inner pond.

A couple of my mates went up there, they sent me a video and it's like a millpond. Think next time we'll give it a go.

 

[geem]

As you would expect, we watched the development very carefully. The GFS model was terrible. It had the TS 400nm East of the ECMWF. Other models were closer to the ECMWF. The ECMWF flip flopped the route either side of the island chain several times. Certainty of the route was very poor and NOAA gave a prediction of hurricane. We decided to stay in Antigua as we have a good protected mangrove option and only 3 or 4 boats here. If the TS had developed into hurricane we would have left for Curacao or just out to sea. The biggest concern if you need to go into the mangroves isn't the storm its the other boats. There are plenty of stories from Grenada in hurricane Ivan where boat were brought into hurricane holes just before the storm and the single anchor dropped and the skipper leaves for a safe house ashore. Nothing you can do last minute when you are settled into your chosen spot.

A friend of mine that lived in the Bahamas for most of his life has weathered 11 hurricanes. He was always fearful of another boat tying into the mangroves behind him and sinking in the storm so his boat was trapped, maybe for good or simply hitting him and sinking his boat.
His technique for mangroves anchoring was to use several fishermans anchors to hook into the mangrove roots. If the anchor dragged or broke the roots it would hook into the next one. Far better than tying to the mangroves. He also told me he would take absolutely everything off the deck of the boat. Sprayhood, dinghy, sails, outboard, halyards (moused), solar panels,etc. He did everything to reduce windage. In the associated storm surge often the boat would rise above the mangroves by a couple of metres putting more load on lines and exposing the boat to the wind

 

[Zing]

I spent a few summers in the Carribean and my plan was always to sail away if a direct hit looked likely. The track record of those that stayed in hurricanes in a direct hit is dismal. No hurricane hole or mangrove will guarantee safety. A perfectly sheltered mangrove will leave you susceptible to ending up on land, bashed to bits by the waves or if still in the water, bashed to bits by the storm surge and waves on the sea bed, or by other boats and 150mph flying missiles from trees and buildings, not to mention the consequences of continual knock downs and flooding risk.

You don’t have to go far at all to escape to a safe level of winds at sea. Less than 100 miles should do it usually, so why escape isn’t the first choice strategy, I just don’t understand.