TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands The bad news during our June 19 - 26 cruise

We just returned from sailing the BVI 6/19 thru 6/26. We had a great time which I'll post shortly but SADLY wanted to report 2 things that happened while we were down there.

On Sunday, a long time charter captain drowned at Norman Island. Please rest in peace. I don't know ant of the details, just rumors so that's all I can say.

On Monday evening there was a thunder storm that hit the water twice at Cooper Island and struck at least 4 boats. We got into Cooper Island around 10:30 Tuesday morning and heard that 2 boats had just been towed out. One had ALL the lights aboard blown out by the lighting, which meant most the entire electrical system was toast. A mono from Seabbatical was hit and had most of it's instruments terminated but did manage to get back to Sea Cow Bay ok. There was a nice, new looking catamaran that a repair crew was working on the entire 3 hours we were there yet didn't seem to be making any progress repair wise. Real reminders that although most of us never have major issues while sailing these beautiful waters, there are lots of things that can go south in a heartbeat. Clearly stay alert and always be careful.

Moorings Captain...rest in peace

https://bvinews.com/boat-captain-who-drowned-sunday-identified-recently-moved-to-bvi-for-work/

The cat was from BVI Yacht charters. ( Painkiller) .How do I know,We were scheduled on her in two weeks. The great company BVI Yacht charters, has put us on a upgraded boat. WE will be on a Saba 50
VAYU.July 12 till July 27th. We will be flying the W. Go Cubs.

We were about 100 ft from the cat that took the direct hit. On engine start up the next morning we had a check engine warning. Limped in to Roadtown and replaced a fuel pressure sensor. No big deal but it toasted a day for us. The service guys didn't show up for several hours. Told me we were the 6th boat they had serviced that day from Cooper. All of the moorings were full at Cooper that night and many of the boats had some sort of issue. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that you won't sleep through a lightning strike like that! Boom!

I was the captain of Painkiller when she was struck by lightning and disabled. We took the main strike to our mast, and it knocked out several nearby boats too. Nobody was injured, no fire (but some smoke from burned out lights, etc-- never good to wake up to smoke on a boat!), no hull damage, and BVI Yacht Chaters got us back out on the water in a new boat by 2pm. We missed The Baths on our itinerary, but we hustled and were able to get to Anegada by the next day.

joeboo, sorry about putting your boat out of commission, but that's great that they got you on a bigger boat!

2017 we were at cooper during a crazy thunderstorm, how did you protect your crew and what would you do differently.

Good question. Everybody was in their beds during the storm; probably the safest place. Not sure what I'd do differently. Our crew handled it all with no troubles. Oh, one thing I should've done: when we were struck, we made sure there were no active fires and we weren't sinking. I should have done a quick inspection of the bilges to make sure we didn't have any small leaks.

When big T-Storms come through in the BVI we turn all main power breakers off. Something I was taught when crewing on superyachts in another lifetime.

We also do this on our own yacht which has a lightning protection system...just in case.

...anyone know if this is nonsense or...a good call?

Yeah, any suggestions for things I should have done differently are welcome.

Turning off the breakers is helpful if you don’t get a direct hit.
Most times the lightening strikes close enough to cause a light stray current to enter your system where it will fry the radio or some lights and not effect anything else and that’s when turning off the breaker box helps

Thanks. So not just tin-hat stuff! We will continue to 'go dark' in that case!

During a run south from Annapolis to Miami, I was in a squall. When The rain stopped and the curtains parted, there was a waterspout and lightning directly in front of me. I put a set of jumper cables in the water that were attached to a ground point. We never got hit but it was the best I could come up with in short notice.

Sounds reasonable

What


What did you use as a ground point?

I was skipper on Honu Kai the mono from Seabbacrical. We lost wind,depth,speed but GPS still worked,bow thruster control had loud alarm going off but still worked.Never came to mind to kill any breakers. Seemed like a light shower.
First lighting strike I saw was the one that I think hit the cat at 1:33 am. Was the Captain that drown at the Indians?
We heard a call over the VHS but we were at the Dogs.

Warren its like all lighting strikes and near misses and there is no proven solution as of yet. Sometimes in an anchorage the only boat struck was the one that was grounded yet the opposite occurs in other strikes.
I’ve personally been in a few heavy lightening storms and have been lucky to have lost just my radio and lighting the instant the lightening flashed.
There’s a lot of stories out there where through hulls have been blown out and who knows about some boats that were lost at sea...Maybe the Propane tanks were struck.. Ouch!

The Rudder arm

When I raced Solings on Lake Michigan (back in the last century!) when we were caught out in a storm we would strip the main and hang the (aluminum) boom overboard and drag in the water. Our theory was the connection at the goose neck would make a ground from the tip of the mast to the water. Glad to report we never had to prove the theory - or - maybe it did prove the theory and we didn't know?!?

Another tip, put all hand held electronics (cell phones, GPS, radios, etc.) in the oven or microwave. That is a natural Farady Cage (look it up.)

When I raced Solings on Lake Michigan (back in the last century!) when we were caught out in a storm we would strip the main and hang the (aluminum) boom overboard and drag in the water. Our theory was the connection at the goose neck would make a ground from the tip of the mast to the water. Glad to report we never had to prove the theory - or - maybe it did prove the theory and we didn't know?!?

Another tip, put all hand held electronics (cell phones, GPS, radios, etc.) in the oven or microwave. That is a natural Farady Cage (look it up.)

We had nearly the same issues, i.e., depth, speed, wind sensors, and auto pilot were all dead but GPS working. Bow thruster control with alarm but I didn't recognize the high pitched noise as coming from it - thought it was coming from my Yanmar controls as it was showing a "check engine" warning.
I got nearly all of the instruments back on line and learned something useful in the process. Capt. Jay suggested I unplug one sensor at a time from the NMEA 2000 switch located behind the VHF radio panel (45 Beneteau). Evidently if you have a bad sensor the NMEA 2000 network will not boot up. So you yank out one connector at a time out of the switch until the network boots. Or I suppose you can start the opposite - unplug them all and plug each one back in until it no longer boots. We had a bad transducer. Once it was unplugged the wind, speed, and auto pilot came back to life. A little annoying not to have depth but we were going to places we already know pretty well. And because of the missing depth we skipped Anegada.

Great advice from Jay. Getting back into Seacow Bay was a little tricky it's shallow and I had a 7ft keal. Thruster alarm was behind fixed panel port side
aft cabin,but the echo made it really hard to pinpoint. Turned off main breaker to stop alarm and turned on for docking.

One more thing I should have done differently: my physician friend reminded me that we should have made a more careful check on everybody that they were OK, even if they slept through it.



Yet another tip: don't turn the microwave on. ;-)