Sailing Through Squalls On The Bahama Bank | Sailboat Story 139

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Living with the weather is a massive portion of what cruising is all about. In the cooler months the cold fronts roll through on a weekly basis, then as the weather warms up the squalls keep you on your toes. What this means is that if you choose to sail in the Bahamas during the warmer months, you will inevitably get caught by squalls, so you have to learn how to sail through them.

The thing about squalls is that they are very difficult to predict. You can be sailing around in clear weather during the morning, but then in the afternoon you find yourself dodging and weaving amongst a large groups of thunderheads. This occurrence is especially common during the summer months when scattered squalls emerge on a near-daily basis.

As a sailor, all you can do is learn to live with the squalls. Try to avoid being near them as best you can, learn to sail in a light breeze when they steal your wind and also be ready to reef down quickly and early when the wind doubles or triples out of the blue.

The nice part about squalls is that they seldom effect you for more than 10 minutes at a time, so you really just have to hang in there long enough for it to blow through, then you’ll be sailing along again on your merry way like nothing ever happened.

In this video, we sail from Grand Cay to West End. During this particular day the wind was incredibly variable. We start off with a favorable 8-10 knots, then it dies completely, then 25 knots, then 0, then 30, then 5, then 2… the finally the wind settled in at a steady 5 knots but it was dead on our nose. We always prefer to sail to our destinations, but this day was a good example of one where you just have to GET THERE, and that often means firing up the old iron genny – which we did.

We arrive at West End 10 hours after departing from Grand Cay. It was a long day, but it was nothing compared to drama that will occur the following day when we attempt to cross the Gulf Stream.

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~ Ben, Tambi, & Molly | S/V Sandflea | “SAILBOATSTORY”

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