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LEAVING A BOAT UNATTENDED IN THE CARIBBEAN IN HURRICANE SEASON
I thought this article would give some good advise to those leaving their yacht In the Caribbean for hurricane season.
If you are going to do this, leave your boat properly
stored ashore. I say this as if you leave your boat in the water, no
matter how good the caretaking staff is they just do not have enough
labor to properly secure boats for hurricane.
As described in my article ‘Securing for Hurricane’,
leaving a boat on a mooring or on its own anchor is a no-no, too much
chance of someone dragging down on you.
Securing to docks is possible, but only if the boat can be secured BETWEEN
two finger piers.
Stuffing in the mangroves is fine. But to do a proper job of stuffing
a boat in the mangroves or securing between piers takes half a day.
If the caretaker has ten boats to take care off, that is five days work
to secure ten boats, and even then he cannot stay on board all ten boats
and tend lines.
Properly stored ashore is the way to go. The first thing to do when
the boat is hauled is to pull a transducer or speed gauge as I could
write a long article of horror stories of owners who arrived back in
November to discover their pride and joy filled up with water to bunk
level!!!!
Properly stored boats ashore are insurable against
named storm damage no matter where they are stored, even within the
hurricane box.
Boats can survive hurricanes when stored ashore, if proper preparations
have been made. In Porto Del Ray Marina many years ago they installed
in their dead storage area a series of dead men throughout the yard.
If a hurricane approaches all the boats in the storage area are securely
tied down to the dead men, so that they can not shake out of their cradles
and the multi hulls can’t fly.
Virgin Gorda Yacht Haven and Crabbs Marina dug holes
and put the boats in the holes. This had mixed results. The boats that
were sitting on tires with their RIGS OUT survived with minimal damage,
those that had their rigs in and were chocked up in their holes on wooden
A frames suffered damage as the holes filled with water, the boats almost
floated, rocked back and forth on their A frames boat were damaged,
but not total losses. Unfortunately Crabbs no longer exists, the yard
went belly up and it is now a storage area for containers.
Putting a boat in a hole is not the be all and end
all, as is illustrated by the case of poor Moonshine. A hole was dug
in Jolly Harbor; she was put in, supported by timbers. Hans Lammers
who for many years was manager of the yard, stated categorically before
hurricane season, that boats should not be stored in holes in Jolly
Harbor as the flat area there was a flood plain and the boats would
float out of the holes. This is exactly what happened to Moonshine who
was severely damaged. Cathy and Ian Ferguson spent a couple of years
rebuilding her, and stored her in Grenada for the hurricane season hauled
up out of the water. Unfortunately the rig was left in and the chocking
inadequate, Moonshine fell, along with about another 198 boats and was
a total loss.
Throughout the years in various yards there have been major disasters
for boats stored ashore. In the vast majority of cases, the rig was
in the boat, the boat started shaking and the screw jacks started backing
off. In some cases the jacks were not chained together and started sliding
out, in other cases the screw jacks settled into the soft earth. The
more the more they settled more the boat shook and over she went.
Some yards cured this problem by welding the screw
jacks together, wiring the screw jacks so that they would not unwind
and most importantly putting plywood pads under the three feet of the
screw jacks. This all sounds very logical but in the practical sense
I wonder if it is possible to put pads under the three legs of each
screw jack.
Look at Grenada; there were roughly 400 boats stored
ashore, a minimum of 7 jacks to a boat, 2,800 screw jacks, three legs,
three pieces of plywood to screw each screw jack that’s 8,400
pieces of plywood-if each one were twelve inches square, that’s
8,400 square feet of plywood-I doubt if there is that much plywood on
the island of Grenada! Plan ahead.
In Spice Island evidently 198 out of 200 boats fell over, in St, Davids
38 boats fell over. An analysis by someone that was in Grenada and inspected
both yards would make for interesting reading.
In May, before I left the island of Grenada I looked
at the new Spice Island yard and realized that it was a disaster just
waiting to happen. The land was mainly newly filled land, soft and flooded
in many places. The boats were stored cheek to jowl, two to four feet
apart with their rigs in. Never mind a hurricane; just a couple of days
of hard rain, which Grenada frequently gets during hurricane season,
the stands would start sinking into the ground. If a 50 or 60 knot wind
blew, then as soon as one boat went over, others would go over like
dominoes.
People are wondering whether or not the insurance companies
will continue to insure boats stored out of the water in or near a hurricane
area? The answer is yes, IF the boat is properly stored and you have
a good broker who can convince the underwriter that the boat is properly
stored.
To properly store a boat requires the co-operation of the boat owner
and the yard. First of all the rig should be pulled out, this will drastically
reduce the windage on the boat, the capsizing tendency in the case of
a blow or a hurricane. It also gives a really good chance to really
inspect the mast rigging, tangs etc.
This operation should NOT be expensive. If the ship’s
crew does the work and prepares the spar it is only a half-hour job
to yank the spar. This fact is illustrated by the fact that in the year
we laid Iolaire up in Ireland (as previously mentioned to avoid hurricanes,
but she still found one) we pulled the rig at the same time as the club
was having it’s annual haul; hauling out Dragons and 30 to 35-feet
fiber glass boats. The person in charge of the hauling said that we
would have to pay extra for the time it would take to lift Iolaire’s
rig out main and mizzen, in comparison to the time it takes to haul
a Dragon and put it on the trailer.
Myself and my two sons, DIII and Richard, prepared
the main and the mizzen for lifting. Once the last Dragon came out we
moved Iolaire alongside the dock, and in thirty minutes we had both
masts off and lying on stands. The club charged us no more than they
charged the Dragon owners to haul out.
In the spring, we reversed the process; again we had
everything prepared. We had both masts in the boat in thirty minutes.
In the light of this there is no excuse for not pulling your rig when
storing a boat ashore in the Caribbean.
Regarding chocking, screw jacks are adequate IF a sufficient
number are used. Certainly on a thirty footer it should be three to
a side and one to the bow, on a forty footer it should be four to a
side and one in the bow, fifty footer, five to a side and one or two
in the bow.
Stands must be securely welded together and screws must be wired so
that they cannot unwind. A twelve-inch square plywood pad must be underneath
EACH of the three legs. Finally sand screws should be driven into the
sand on either side of the boat; the boat secured to the sand screw
tensioning devices with nylon straps, tensioned by come alongs as found
in the trucking industry. If on a hard standing eye bolts must be secured
into the hard standing and the straps secured to the eye bolts.
The boats should be stored far enough apart, so that
if a neighbor falls over is doesn’t knock your boat over. The
neighboring boats MUST also have their masts pulled as otherwise if
they fall over the mast will land across your boat, and will likely
knock your boat over. Secured in this fashion underwriters will approve
and will be willing to extend insurance coverage.
Needless to say, most of the yard managers will not like this type of
set up as it will require them to space the boats relatively far apart,
meaning that for the given area they will only be able to store about
half the number of boats that they have stored in the past.
The cradles described in Nanny Cay, look like another
solution, but more expensive. Even in Nanny Cay cradles I think that
the underwriters if coverage is desired will require that the mast be
pulled.Well there is a lot of sensible stuff in this article, but I
think Don is talking more as an insurance agent than as a perennial
yachtsman that wishes to leave his yacht here in the Caribbean. Do we
really want to take the mast out every year? Not only do we pay for
boat storage but also mast storage. Also paying for a rigging company
to take out the mast wrap it up and the do the reverse and tune it every
year ,no thanks! Not only are we being asked as yachtsmen to pay 2%
of the value of our boats every year but also to pay for non essential
works and mast storage. I think you will find that all yachtsmen concur,
that if a yacht is stored on concrete with adequate stands that are
welded together with one inch water pipe, and all sails are removed
to reduce windage this should be accounted an acceptable risk by any
of the insurance companies. Boats should be stored in yards that have
learnt from their mistakes and made improvements to cover any risks
that had not been understood. Insurance companies can only do this by
listening to yachtsmen that have chosen yards in which to store and
by assessing the risks on an individual yard basis. After all most yachtsmen
are themselves good at assessing risk when it is their vessel at stake
and have more to lose than the insurers themselves.
If I were the insurance agent I would definitely change
my strategy, after being clobbered year after year. What somebody needs
to sort out in the insurance world is to “not put all ones eggs
in one basket”.
In the nineties from 95 to 2000 we in Antigua had five
years of serious hurricane activity. Basically there is no way to know
each year what the pattern will be but if you study the weather, you
can definitely discern a pattern from year to year where hurricanes
are more likely to strike. We in Antigua could definitely see a propensity
for storms passing through the Caribbean chain lower down than they
used to. How is it that those making policy could not. You can’t
just look at the statistics after the fact, when the goal posts are
moving all the time. Don’t forget that 15 years ago “routing
charts” were something that one could rely on for predicting weather
in certain parts of the world. Nowadays you would be better off with
a Ouija board.
The weather patterns in bygone years were more predictable.
Now hurricane strike probability is more like roulette. It is certainly
easy to see emerging patterns after the season has started (look at
those hurricanes hitting the southern coast of the U.S late in 2005).All
these recent changes to the weather pattern should be taken into account
by underwriters.
So after our spate of hits and near misses in the north of the windward
chain of Caribbean islands, the insurance companies decreed that every
yachtsman should go south of a line if he was to obtain cover. How ridiculous
when; if you watch the pattern the hurricanes themselves were going
lower year by year.
As a yachtsman one was crowded/herded down south into
yards and marinas that had absolutely no experience of what it takes
to secure a yacht for a full on hurricane and away from yards that had
taken all the precautions having learnt the lessons. Now after the Grenada
fiasco I hope that the people that make policy and create arbitrary
lines will have learnt their lesson before Trinidad has a serious strike.
Here in English Harbour we have one of the best hurricane
holes in the Caribbean and enough experience to organize the boats staying
in the water for the hurricane season. If the Marine Trades Association
here in Antigua were to organize a formal and responsible body that
oversaw the mooring of yachts left here to satisfy the insurance companies
that risks of boat damage were being minimized, many businesses within
the association bemoaning the lack of boats staying in Antigua, would
in fact have a reason for staying open in the hurricane season.
All this potential marine trade is being driven south
by the insurance companies. I hope that this year and in the future
we will see a change of policy that really looks at the risks of lumping
all yachts into one area of the Caribbean. Here in Antigua we have learnt
many lessons and at Antigua Slipway we will certainly sure up any boat
left with us to minimize any risk of damage. Yachtsmen, talk to your
insurers, reason with them and bring your boats for storage during hurricane
season. At Antigua Slipway we will weld stands with 1” water pipe
so that you can leave the rig in. We at Antigua slipway will protect
your yacht from hurricane damage we have night time security so theft
is not a problem like so many other Caribbean yards. Call Deon Hector
for a full quote for storing your yacht in the Caribbean at 268 727
1845.
Welcome all Caribbean Yachtsmen
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Po Box 576,
English Harbour, St Johns Antigua West Indies
(268) 460-1056 | Fax (268) 460-1566 | VHF Ch. 68\12
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