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Old 02-11-2019, 11:02   #1
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Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Hi! We are buying a new sailboat, a 42 foot catamaran, in the Ft Lauderdale area. We’d like to move the boat to Grenada before next summer, and we plan to go cruising at the end of next year after hurricane season. We can’t take a long enough chunk of time off work yet to do this in one trip, so we would like to do a few smaller (1 week) trips. Open to paying for someone to do part of the trip if we don’t have the time. Any advice for the best way to do this in a few “hops”? Obviously the boat would need to be left somewhere secure between visits. We have experience sailing bareboat charters in the Virgins, but haven’t explored the rest of the Caribbean yet. Any advice?
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Old 02-11-2019, 13:22   #2
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

I would recommend reading The Thornless Path to Windward by Bruce Van Sant. It will give you an understanding as to what you can expect on your journey. Basically you wait for weather and move as far as you can with each window. We completed your planned journey last season and can tell you from experience that you pretty much need to be ready to move on good weather. Enjoy the adventure.
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Old 02-11-2019, 13:56   #3
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

The issue with doing it in hops is finding a safe place to leave and return to the boat. An alternative is to hire a delivery captain (see link on my profile) to move the boat from FLL to the BVIs or further south. Then you pick up the boat for the more enjoyable part of the trip.
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Old 02-11-2019, 14:32   #4
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

We did just this a couple of years ago. Given the weather that year it’s hard for me to imagine this being a successful or pleasant transit. We had to wait for weather a number of things and then scoot to make the window we did have. We found ourselves waiting in some very hard to reach places like Mayaguana.
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Old 03-11-2019, 03:40   #5
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Ada.
Congratulations!
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Old 03-11-2019, 04:24   #6
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Consider finding a boat in the eastern Caribbean such as Chaguaramos, Trinidad or Grenada, St Martin, Martinique, Puerto Rico. Otherwise, the delivery skipper option makes a lot of sense. We waited eight weeks for a weather window to PR from Bonaire. From PR back to the Windwards was a head bashing slog.
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Old 03-11-2019, 05:04   #7
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Ada - from someone in Grenada as I type this.
Its a long way from FtL down here. My suggestion is to get a delivery captain to bring it all the way down for you.
Are you bringing it south just for insurance reasons? Another consideration is sailing it north with hops. Lots more marinas and places to leave it between using it. Then join up with the Salty Dog or Carib 1500 in the fall after the Annapolis Boat show. We met quite a few people that did it this way and would do it again. Feel free to ask any questions about Grenada and getting here. We love it and have been here for 2 H seasons now.
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Old 03-11-2019, 05:08   #8
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Hi Adapotatoe, you have to tell us how you came up with that name. I smell a story.

The Caribbean is great but if you’ve got the boat in Florida now I would say do some sailing and really learn the ropes and the particulars of your own boat while spending a few months in the Bahamas. Once you jump over the gulf stream the sailing is relatively easy with many locations to go (recognizing the unfortunate situation with the Abacos, but that’s a whole different thread).

Doing that first will also help you discover if you need anything major to be done with the boat in which case you could go back to the states where it’s more affordable and the quality of workmanship is better. Now I hear you saying that this sounds like it would take off lotta time, however that leads me to the big time saving tip. Hire a delivery captain to take the I-64, which is 6-8 weeks shorter then doing the “Thornless Path” yourself. The idea behind the thornless path is basically that you do small little hops eastward either at night when the trade winds lesson and can be offset by land affect and or The larger weather patterns give you a reprieve from the trade winds. This route is challenging, it’s tiring, it takes a long time, the Mona passage is no fun, and certainly the Dominican Republic is a pain and expensive to check in and out of.

The I-64 approach is to hang out in the southern Exuma‘s enjoying yourself until you see a winter northerly storm coming through the States. Then you position the boat somewhere like Rum Cay until the moment is right for you to head ESE. As that storm passes through (well north of the Bahamas) the winds will clock around to the south, then the west, then either somewhat north or die out, before they resume there normal trade direction. By that time you should be around 64’W where you can turn south on a beam directly into the Virgins. A delivery crew might have to sit around for a bit waiting for that weather window to sail it or, or they could always decide to beat/motor there.
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Old 03-11-2019, 05:11   #9
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Uh yeah, time...the I-64 usually takes 5-6 days.
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Old 03-11-2019, 05:23   #10
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

TxAgs- did you take the thorny path? How long did it take from Georgetown Bahamas to St Thomas?

I think you’d agree, if the OP can get the boat is in the Virgins it would be desirable for him/her to sail it themselves to Grenada. There are a lot of great places to go, it can be done a week or two at a time and there are places to leave the boat along the way.
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Old 03-11-2019, 05:48   #11
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Quote:
Originally Posted by TxAgs View Post
Ada - from someone in Grenada as I type this.
Its a long way from FtL down here. My suggestion is to get a delivery captain to bring it all the way down for you.
Are you bringing it south just for insurance reasons? Another consideration is sailing it north with hops. Lots more marinas and places to leave it between using it. Then join up with the Salty Dog or Carib 1500 in the fall after the Annapolis Boat show. We met quite a few people that did it this way and would do it again. Feel free to ask any questions about Grenada and getting here. We love it and have been here for 2 H seasons now.
I second the Dawgs if it works for you. Transit Hampton, Va to BVI or Antigua is about ten to fourteen days for most boats. Good program, nice people, good community. We did it in 2016. We now summer over in Chaguaramos, Trinidad.
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Old 03-11-2019, 07:23   #12
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

I second the getting to know your boot advice as well as crossing the Gulf Stream and going down that way. We bought our L40 in Oct ‘14. It took us 3 months of constant work to get her ready to go south.

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Old 03-11-2019, 07:38   #13
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Adapotato....

You may want to rethink your plan for many of the reasons others have mentioned.

Provisions for insurance has kept me in Grenada for the last 5 months at Port Louis Marina south of 12 degrees 5 minutes north. There are very limited options for sailing if you are restricted from Carriacou and the Grenadines and points north.

Trinadad and Tobago are options, but pirate activities out of Venezuela have kept many from sailing south or even sailing west to the ABCs. There are provisions for sailing from Grenada to Trinidad coordinating with Grenada and Trinidad Coast Guards. Also, many insurance companies require you to stay at least 100 nm north of Venezuela waters if you travel west from Grenada.

In other words Grenada is a great destination to a nice Caribbean island. Being limited in movement from June 1 to November or even December 1 may not be ideal.

If you are an American boat needing to dock during your stay is Grenada and need 60hz power, the only marina to offer 60hz is Port Louis Marina in St. George‘s. Although it may be the nicest marina in the Caribbean and certified anchorage up to a Cat 3 hurricane, it is also one of the most expensive marinas in all of the Caribbean.

Based on my experience of a 5 month transit from Florida to Grenada, I would say the best sailing is right in your back yard in the Bahamas. Being close to the US is also a big plus since importing anything into the islands of the Bahamas or Caribbean can be a very expensive nightmare. If you need quality boat work, done in a reasonable time with good parts availability the US is the place. The labor (i.e., $20 US per hour) in the islands is cheap and the parts art either unobtainable or outrageously expensive.

While the Spanish Virgins, US and British Virgins are great sailing grounds. You have to get there and that not an easy task as previously mentioned in this thread. The Grenadines are also a great sailing ground. Again you have to get there.

Hopefully this sliver of information may be useful. I would recommend you continue to gather lots of information prior to firmly committing to you plan so you know exactly what you can expect.

Best of luck.
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Old 03-11-2019, 08:45   #14
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Having done the round trip twice, I would say get to know your boat first. Take the hop over to the Bahamas and find out what works and what doesn't on the boat. Boat parts are so much easier to source in the US. Hiring a delivery skipper is fine, but you will miss all that time learning how to operate your boat, sometimes in adverse conditions. Besides, you really don't want to miss the wonderful empty anchorages available in the southern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos. Bruce Van Sant's book is excellent, his advice sound, not only for going to windward off the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, but also the passages between the Eastern Caribbean islands.

One thing we were glad we installed between the two trips was an inexpensive fishfinder in the hull that doesn't have the depth sounder. Pulling into a fuel dock that claims to have an 8' depth alongside and finding that the 8' depth only extends about 10 feet of either side of the dock, which we approached on our non-depth sounder hull because of the wind direction, was enlightening. We really found it useful in traversing the some of the narrow passes in the Bahamas, the winding entrance into Luperon, the only anchorage on Mona Island and some of the passes between the islands comprising the Tobago Cays.
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Old 09-11-2019, 20:40   #15
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Re: Moving boat from FL to Grenada

Yeah, looks like Adapotatoe is another one of those people that posts a question, receives the time from all of us to respond and offer our wise guidance and assistance, then disappears.
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