A Simple Sail Turned Most Difficult

St. Martin/Sint Maarten, the island controlled half by the French and half by the Dutch, is a beautiful place. We arrived here after what was supposed to be a rather simple passage from Virgin Gorda, BVI's on this past Sunday. The passage was about 80 miles and was begun at around 2:30 pm with an expected trip time of 20 hours.

We left the BVI island of Virgin Gorda from the Bitter End, motor-sailing past Necker Island, owned by billionaire Richard Branson, of Virgin Airways, etc. It was a cloudy day as we left and the forecast called for moderate winds (8-12 kts) with seas of 4 to 6 feet. It also forecast the weather would be worsening on Monday afternoon. So the three amigo boats headed off together anticipating a rather typical pass to St. Martin. Once out of sight of land we enjoyed a fantastic dolphin show on our bow around sunset and had up to ten dolphins swirling around between the hulls of our boat, zooming up and down in and out just missing the bottom of our hulls as they played in our wakes.

After a dinner, one of our favorite salads, the Nor'easter, we settled in for a couple of hours of what we hoped would be quiet sailing. At around 8pm, the big colorful Genaker sail (kind of like a spinnaker) decided to come unfurled at the top and began wildly slapping about in the rigging behind causing much noise and grave concern for it's being able to stay in one piece as it flogged about in the guy wires. We had to act quickly if we could save it and the only solution to keeping it in one piece was to try to lower it onto the boat and stash it in a forward locker hatch until we could sort it all out in calmer seas. The seas were not friendly at this point and were bucking the deck around fiercely as Rick donned his life jacket and strapped it's safety harness onto the lifelines strung from the bow to the stern of each side. The lifelines allow one to move about the decks while remaining fixed to the boat via a harness on the life jacket. The principal is that if one is pitched overboard at least they would still be attached to the boat. Getting them back aboard would be difficult at best but having to find them in the water, overboard in the dark, would be practically impossible. The conditions were not good to be forward of the cockpit for any reason,let alone one calling for emergency action and gymnastic climbing and heavy lifting. Rick carefully inched his way around the cockpit and up to the mast where the lines were cleated, holding the Genaker halyard and the sail aloft. Initially, lowering the halyard and the sail a bit made conditions worse as the flopping sail tried to tangle itself around the mast and stays holding the mast in place. Suz maneuvered the boat away from the wind allowing the wind to move the sail away from the mast as Rick continued to lower the sail closer to the deck. It became evident that any additional lowering would allow the sail to drop into the seas, making it nearly impossible to retrieve it once water soaked. Cleating the halyard, Rick cautiously moved down from the mast and around the deck to where the sail was flapping off the side of the boat. Sitting on the tramp, he was able to pull the sail aboard as he stuffed it into an opened locker hatch. Unfortunately, the top third was still hanging above the locker and I had to quickly improvise with some lines to keep it from re-deploying before I went back up to the mast to lower the rest of the sail for storing. Once down, the final third was retrieved and stashed away, while Rick inched back to the safety of the cockpit, exhausted and soaked from the spray and rain. Oh yeah, had I mentioned that it had since decided to start to rain and we were now under a passing squall. Whew! What an ordeal. Lesson learned! We should never move with a sail unintended to be deployed during a trip. The Geneker is a specialty sail used specifically for downwind sailing, something we wouldn't be doing during that trip.. We had put it up the morning before, anticipating using it when all six of us sailed back downwind to check out of customs. After our return from checking out, I had left it up not wanting to deal with the extra hassle of putting it down and storing it away for the passage. I thought about the possibility of it deploying but decided that was unlikely. WRONG decision made too late! Fortunately, all turned out OK but it provided a very scary 30 minutes.

After that excitement, Rick went below to try to relax for a few hours, anticipating taking the first late watch from midnight to 4 or so. Before he went below, we dropped the mainsail after the rain squalls continued to pass over our boat with winds up to 25v kts. The winds continued to maintain a constant 15-20 kts and the wave heights began to pick up to around 6 to 8 Rick tried unsuccessfully to get much sleep below. Finally falling under somewhere around 11:30 he was able to sleep until 12:45 when he came up to relieve Suz. She reported consistent wind in a very manageable sailing range so we hoisted the main again to try to counteract the mounting wave heights. Having sails up, seems to stabilize the boats motion and we wanted some relief from the pounding we were getting from the on-the-nose wave action. It helped but not much. It was a very bumpy, motion-filled night.

Rick did his watch from around 1 pm until around 4:30 when the exhaustion from the sail ordeal caused him to yield his watch a half hour early as he went back down below to get a couple hours of shut-eye. We have an agreement that a watch can be switched for any reason, no reason needed, but here seemed no reason necessary after the earlier experience. At around 7am Rick reappeared to take over from Suz and she gratefully collapsed onto the cushions in the cockpit for some rest as he took the helm. We were still a couple of hours out of St. Martin yet we knew the worst was past. We would be at anchor in a couple of hours. Pulling into the harbor at St. Martin, was welcome and we quickly found a suitable anchorage spot and dropped the hook for some rest.

As usual, Suz did her watches in Yeoman-like fashion and even negotiated a cruise ship passing a bit closer than we like, sometime around dawn. She had to call them on the VHF and make sure they were aware of the three of us out there. They came back to her and after she asked them if we needed to do any course changes to accommodate them, we made a 30 degree change of course and they passed us without incident. Unfortunately, the wet rainy passage, coupled with the overdrive excitement of the sail ordeal, seemed to have taken its course on Suz as she seemed to feel flu-like symptoms the entire day of arrival and still isn't 100% but is definitely on thew mend.

Having not yet cleared into the country through customs on Sunday, our arrival morning, we stayed aboard and cleaned the boat, rested, and relaxed. Monday morning we arose, went ashore, cleared in, went to the first French bakery we could find and enjoyed fresh pastries for breakfast. Afterward, David and Vicky and Suz and I took a local bus to the Dutch side of the island where we spent the day wandering around, window-shopping and enjoying the sights of a new place. We returned around 5 pm and enjoyed a simple dinner ashore. Into bed early last night allowed us to get up-and-at-em this morning.

We seem to arrive into these islands on their holiday season as today most stores are closed on the Dutch side as it is their Carnival week. Then tomorrow is the Dutch Queen' s (second!) birthday (she gets to have two since she's the Queen!) so everything will still be closed. Then on Thursday, it's May Day, another holiday for both sides of the islands. We hope to leave for St. Bart's (only 18 miles away) Thursday so we spent much of the day today seeking out a couple of boat parts we need to replace. No luck, but the repairs are superficial so not a biggie. We'll get them fixed when we can find the parts elsewhere.

Hopefully our next leg will be uneventful, but we now know, more than ever, not to ever expect anything to be simple at sea.