TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands itinerary for the Christmas winds

We will be sailing this Friday on a 42 ft Cat, Looking for itinerary suggestions to deal with 20 to 30 MPH east winds in store for the BVI next week..

Reef early and reef often. Sail the standard counterclockwise routing. The usual anchorages will be fine. The wind direction is slightly N of East so the Anegada anchorage should also be good. It will be a fun sail over and back down to Jost. For most of the week the forecast is not over 25 knots. The south end of the SFD will not be fun and if you go around to the main entrance to the N sound you will have about 90 minutes of not much fun. Other than that it won’t be to bad. If you have inexperienced people on the boat make sure they get a complete briefing about never uncleating a line, sheet or rope they don’t know 100% for sure is not unloaded or controlled. Make sure they understand that unless you’re on a very small charterboat they will not effect the outcome of a potential collision with a dock or other object unless they are willing to be a human fender which can be quite painful. Use of regular fenders is a better option. Have a person standby with a extra fender that can place it where needed for a unexpected outcome.
Picking up Moorings balls make sure everyone understands their roll and that the hooker understands to never grab the mooring pennant by the loop. On windy days unpleasant choices occur from people doing that. Grab the pennant like your picking up a snake with a snake stick.
When anchoring make sure the helmsman controls the boats backward motion as chain is payed out to the correct scope. Keep the boat into the wind and use the motors to ease it back slowly.

G

great advice!

Thanks for the info

The forecast for the Drake channel says 10 ft waves and 10 second periods. That's not good in my book. Am I getting my info from the wrong source? Nanny Cay to Norman or Peter island looks like a beam reach in the south end of the SFD channel. Any ideas how to avoid that?

I'm chartering a cat for a flat ride for a few of my crew. I'm OK limiting the plan to avoid the worst. Again, out of Nanny Cay. Two anchorages would likely be enough for the crew.

How about Nanny cay to CGB and then maybe to Vost. Some of the crew could take a cab back from CGB and let the rest of us bash it out back to Nanny Cay.

Always open to more ideas.