Offshore in the Blue Atlantic
Ihave been fortunate to spend the past 15 winter sailing seasons in the Caribbean. My regular port of refuge is St. Maarten, with numerous flights and a high level of quality marine services. Most fellow veteran sailors thought the challenges inflicted by the one-two punch of hurricanes Maria and Irma were insufferable enough. But it turns out nobody had a pandemic plan in place from the smallest Caribbean island to world leaders. The quick shutting down of borders caught many skippers by surprise, locking many in place. Those caught at sea, as islands closed entirely, were in double trouble.
Obligations to departing charter guests in Dominica, along with confusion over the ever-changing closing dates of borders, caught me solo-sailing 180 nautical miles in 24 hours from Dominica to St. Maarten…arriving 11 hours after the island had closed. A 48-hour reprieve under Q flag only deepened the resolve of customs and border patrol to enforce the closure, which led me to Plan B: a sail to the United States Virgin Islands. I could not get into St. Maarten, but with my Swan 48, Avocation, being an America-flagged vessel, and me being an American citizen, I would be guaranteed entry.
In my mind, onboard email capability is not a necessity. So, before leaving St. Maarten, I therefore had to relay by text to friends ashore my answers to the Covid-19-related questions that US Customs was posing that were required 24 hours before arrival. After another solo overnight sail from St. Maarten to Charlotte Amalie, I dropped anchor off the Customs office
Hank Schmitt has spent the past 15 winters aboard his Swan 48, Avocation, in the Caribbean. He won’t soon forget his “Covid-cruise” home to New York this past spring.
located at the Blyden Ferry Terminal to clear in. No one in the office had received my pre-arrival health declaration, but no matter. Ten minutes later, I was legally welcomed back to US territory with no quarantine, no restrictions, no fee—not even a temperature check.
This is not to say that everything was normal. At the airport, the National Guard was performing temperature checks for passengers arriving by plane. The cruise-ship terminals were empty, hotels closed, charters canceled and the nearby British Virgin Islands under a no-sail edict. Seeing zero sails traversing Sir Francis Drake Channel at the height of the Caribbean sailing season was somewhat apocalyptic.
Finally having an island to shelter in place allowed me to watch from afar via The New York Times app and Whatsapp video calls as the world changed under pandemic lockdown. As the days turned to weeks that were closing in on insurancepolicy-imposed deadlines for moving to safe harbors ahead of the impending hurricane season, I was witness to the looming logistical nightmare of stranded boats within closed islands with no way for owners or crew to board. Some owners chartered planes—and in one case an entire cargo plane—to get to their boats via St. Thomas.
The group that runs the annual Salty Dawg Rally quickly pivoted to invite boats to join a loose federation of yachts departing weekly over several Sundays, helping roughly 185 boats get home. Almost all chose to listen to weather routers who decided the safest way to return to the States was through the Bahamas to Florida and up the coast. Since many were cruising couples sailing shorthanded, this seemed a safer choice. One big COVID-19 change: Sailors were setting sail shorthanded and not flying in additional crew to help.
I have made the passage from the Caribbean to New England every year since 1999. Normally I sail with a full crew of paying charter guests, but this year I decided to return doublehanded. Most years, I stay east and sail almost due north on a beam reach to Bermuda on the first stretch before making the second, more-challenging leg from Bermuda across the Gulf Stream to Newport.
This year, with a departure from Red Hook—100 miles farther west from my usual departure point—we were lucky to not have to maintain easting to get to Bermuda (which was closed anyway) and were able to sail a relaxed broad reach. I seldom set a waypoint sailing offshore, but rather try to find a comfortable and quick sailing angle for the first half of a passage. If you are within 20 or even 30 degrees of your desired course, you are OK, as long as you have a good idea of the next wind shift. It gets even more important to follow a compass course to a waypoint the last couple of days.
By the time we hit the latitude of Bermuda, we were 160 nautical miles west of the island, and had shaved 100 miles off the traditional passage. After four days of trade-wind sailing, the breeze kicked up from the northeast above Bermuda, which allowed us to crack off and sail west on a broad reach to set up our Gulf Stream crossing. When the winds went southwest a day and a half later, we were able to tack over and sail north to cross the Gulf Stream with the winds and current running in roughly the same direction. Our course was north, but we were making northeast over the ground while in the Stream. We rounded Montauk, New York, some eight and a half days out and were docked before noon, just shy of a nine-day trip dock to dock.
Now that I am home, I look back on my shortened COVID-19 Caribbean season and am trying to predict what next season will look like. Will there be the same rallying cry to return next winter or will many cruisers feel required to stay close to home as a theoretical second wave reels up? Or will more sailors than ever choose to social distance by taking off on their boats looking for safer places to shelter until a vaccine signals the all-clear? At this moment, who knows?
Veteran voyager Hank Schmitt is the founder and proprietor of Offshore Sailing Opportunities, a networking service that links boat owners with prospective crews. For more, visit its website (sailopo.com).