Gonzalo

[MarkJ]

Great news!

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by beneteau-500

723nm from Belem Brazil the highest wind was around 57 knots

I have always wanted to do Belem and go along the Amazon.

Have fun.

[captainjay]

Pictures from the blog of a friend who was moving his boat back to the Caribbean for the season. They got damaged in Fay and hauled out for repairs. Looks like a lot of boats where damaged.
Instagram

[accomplice]

She had been set on another tayana 58ds anyway!

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[neilpride]

Deal with the boat owners with boats beached at marigot, at least 4 of this boats, imposible from the wáter due rocky bottoms so the boatyard manager choose to lift boats at the beach and use a truck to drive the boats to the boatyard by road, i feel the pain of this guys , yesterday come to me the owner of a beneteau first crying for help to move the boat to the wáter, our crane is to small to handle the size and weight plus is located in a rocky bottom , so any attempt to tow the boat to deep wáter is going to end bad for the hull and the sad part is the boat is in one piece... the only way is to get a deal with the hotel manager to demolish the Wall entrance and drive the crane there , very expensive....

Tomorrow i have more diving trips in order to save some personal stuff from 2 more sunked boats , this is painful ... really sad... and yesterday arrive the fisrt 2 holed sunked boats to the boatyard waiting for repairs,
we offer our aft cabin to a couple who loose their boat ,they dont have money for a hotel not even a flight ticket back to home...

Cheers....

[monte]

Good on you mate, keep up the good work...

[poiu]

I keep my boat in the water during a bit of the hurricane season, hauling out for Aug-Oct only. It had been my plan in the unlikely event of an early or late strike to sail away if a hurricane was approaching, so I was wondering if that was the correct strategy. I looked at how that might have worked with Gonzalo in Bermuda as there is conveniently a buoy 250nm to the west. The images below shows a plot of what weather the buoy had as the hurricane struck Bermuda together with a plot of wave height and the corresponding plot in Bermuda (there is no wave data unfortunately for Bermuda).

It looks altogether manageable with gusts of up to 29kt and sig wave ht of 17ft (average of highest 1/3rd). I know with this storm there wasn't a lot of notice, but it should have been possible to get that far in 36 hours. I suppose in St Maarten there is a problem with bridge openings. Did anyone sail away and might it have been a good thing to do?

Best wishes to those of you having a tough time out there.

[monte]

I can't imagine predicting the hurricane path within 250M, 36 hrs out. Easy enough in hindsight but sometimes those things track off unexpectedly. You might just be sailing straight into the eye..

[neilpride]

Nahh, bridge openings are not the problem in this particular cane in st marteen, lots of folks get caught off guard, thinking in something around 40 or max 50 knts tropical storm forcewinds or a weak cat 1 passing by the south, at least this is what i think about the fleet in marigot, they maybe think is going to pass south as a tropical storm, but it pass north of us with a NE,N,W,SW, wind sift ,leaving marigot like a nightmare leeshore , in Oyster pond chárter boats brooke free from moorings , i count 3 in the rocks , 3 more beached and 4 sunk it, in Grand Case i cant imagine why there is 3 more visible boats beached , a nice C&c destroyed to.

I live in St marteen, i be in 3 other previous canes and with luck and preparation my boat is in one piece, early days here in the island i get used to be until august in the wáter and haul out for sept, oct, nov, others seasons full summer in the wáter, risky, to me the best aproach to deal with a hurricane season if you are a cruiser sailing here and there is to be out of the box, if you dont have insurance and your boat is your home stay south, be in the wáter is a risk to loose everything, hurricane moorings despite Markj experience are just this , good if you dont have a boat dragging on top of you, haul out for me is the best solution, no mast up , straps to ground, and plenty of jackstands, and if is posible with no boats around you, but my case is diferent, i have insurance and my boat is not something like my home , i can afford loose it and keep going, seems to me many dont learn nothing about previous canes in the island,
Luis, Hugo, Lenny....

Sail away with plenty of time can be a option , 4 days in advance , this is like pull up your anchor right now and dont waste a second, less is risky, engine breakdowns or other problems can put your butt in a nasty place, again, stay south....Regards..

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by 2Ripples

Heard that some boats in Jolly Harbour boatyard in Antigua got knocked over during Gonzalo passing.
Any reliable news from the different islands at this point ?


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Yes, I was there on Monday on an RYA course with Miramar Saling and 15 boats were sunk in Jolly. My instructor's personal 32 footer's dock failed as did his bowlines and we had an interesting time lashing it to concrete posts with an anchor and chain to keep it from even worse damage. I personal saw a Hunter 42's dock tear in half, sending the Hunter to run aground (tearing up the toerail and hull/deck joint), but at least it didn't sink.

A lot of people had flooding, roofs damaged or missing and power and water outages. Local word was that it went from TS to Cat 1 very rapidly. I saw a pressure drop of 1003 to 990 mb between 0700 and 0830h and from that to 1006mb by 1130h. I estimate as did the people I was with that we hit 75-80 knots at the very height of it.

I do not care to see that sort of weather again.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by SouthernC

Hi , does anyone have any news or pictures of how boats faired in ENGLISH HARBOUR , Antigua
We have our boat lying there secured ( hopefully) in the mangroves . Any info appreciated . Have seen pics of jolly harbour but no info on English harbour
Many thanks
Andy

Bit late now as you already probably know this, but we were in English Harbour on Wednesday and it looked pretty undamaged. I saw one boat aground.

[S/V Alchemy]

This is a video shot of my instructor's 32 footer after the stern cleats have torn off the dock and before two 5/8" bow lines parted, sending the boat (which had been using a Whaler-type runabout as a fender) into the dock to the left. I estimate gusts to 60 at this stage, after which we went to fetch him from saving the sailing school's boats a short distance away. When we came back, his lines parted and we had to run lines to concrete posts to save the boat. Those '80s Jeanneaus are tough boats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZXR...UWRhWNqH73ajhA

[MarkJ]

We went out and photraphed all boats in the Lagoon and Marigot bay that were put ashore or sunk, destroyed, etc and will have a website with them all on by tomorrow.

A little over 80 boats...

[John A]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

This is a video shot of my instructor's 32 footer after the stern cleats have torn off the dock and before two 5/8" bow lines parted, sending the boat (which had been using a Whaler-type runabout as a fender) into the dock to the left. I estimate gusts to 60 at this stage, after which we went to fetch him from saving the sailing school's boats a short distance away. When we came back, his lines parted and we had to run lines to concrete posts to save the boat. Those '80s Jeanneaus are tough boats.

Please everyone, remove all sails and dodgers in preparation for a hurricane, even while in a marina.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by John A

Please everyone, remove all sails and dodgers in preparation for a hurricane, even while in a marina.

The guy's an RYA instructor. Had the forecast been more accurate, he would have done precisely that.

Antigua - Local Reports (Caribbean Hurricane Network)

Audio: Imminent TS Gonzalo gives rise to flood warning | Antigua Observer Newspaper

It didn't pass south, really. I think it passed right over Antigua. The eye was rapidly forming at the time. The previous day, Gonzalo was more pudding shaped.

I don't know of the name of the local forecaster on whom the ex-pat community generally rely, but I was aware that Gonzalo deepened so rapidly from a 45 knot TS to right around Cat 1 territory that there was a bit of apologetic sheepishness from him the next day. Events developed rapidly, it seems.