Our first squall! 🌊 ☔️

Chris Jacobs

A simple 2 hour sail up north I told the crew as we departed (narrowly avoiding the world’s biggest sting ray). The first hour was perfect upwind gusty sailing, until we saw a squall on the horizon! I was very excited for my first experience of a Caribbean squall as skipper (we had a great one during round Barbados race when I was on helm). We already had 2 reefs in at this point, so felt prepared. When it hit, the wind increased from 21kts to 36kts! We depowered at first and then attempted to heave too. This didn’t really work as the backed headsail was depowered and didn’t offer enough to counter the main sail. Good lesson. We all got completed soaked through and then continued on. The wind totally dropped off and we headed off on a different tack. The wind then shifted around a lot. We tried another heave too but didn’t quite nail it, didn’t head into the wind enough and ended up on a weird beam reach. Eventually we gave up and put the engine on as our destination was into the wind and our ETA was another two hours away. Now anchored in Rameau bay and it’s raining on our lunch!

Sarah Jacobs

Set off in pretty standard breezy sunshine but about an hour in we could see a storm approaching. I expected a bit of rain but it was torrential and the gusts were all over the place. Luckily I had no concept of how tricky the conditions were plus I had complete trust in Chris & Becca so I didn’t panic 😂 Squall over we decided to practice ‘heave ho’ which went perfectly - also handy for man overboard! Motored in to Rameau Bay on Canouan rather than opting for the Sandy Lane Marina. We were alone in the bay for lunch but as evening arrived so did about 10 more yachts - safety in numbers 👍 We took the dinghy to the Soho Beach House pier expecting to be seen off but were welcomed to ‘Soho Beach Saturdays’ sunset drinks & dinner - another fabulously different day 😊

Becca

Before setting out we spotted something swimming behind the boat. It was a huge ray, at least a meter wide! Glad I wasn’t in the water at that point 🐟 We got the sails up in the bay with one reef in before heading north. We were cruising away at 6.2kts on a starboard tack, lovely! With an hour to go, the rain approached quickly and we were in our first squall 🌧️ Initially, Chris continued to sail until we were overpowered where the gusts reached a maximum of 36kts 😅 we hove to and held until it passed. We weren’t quite in the right position as we were more of a beam reach than close haul, along with the head sail not tight enough to be backed. After it passed, we looked up heave to technique and practiced it again as we could see more squalls coming over the island! Luckily we missed the next one! Now for some dry clothes 😂