Quick version:
Pleasant sailing, some of it magical, despite high winds. Our crew managed to come a day late, so we trimmed the itinerary: Cam Bay, Leverick Bay (2 nights), Diamond Cay, Great Harbour JVD. In one day we visited BEYC for geocaching and lunch, snorkeled Cactus Reef by Prickly Pear Island, and went to Leverick Bay Resort for showers, good BBQ with unbelievable Mocko Jumbie stilt dancers, and an enjoyable visit with Kimmers and Lew and manager Nick Willis and his wife Monica. At Diamond Cay, Bubbly Pool was doing its delightful thing, but Taboo still not open for dinner (“Maybe January.”). In Great Harbour we had a really great dinner at Corsair, overseen by the irrepressible Vinnie. On our last day, we enjoyed unhurried snorkeling at the Indians, still top-notch, then hurried motoring back to Sunsail base. (My crew chose to spend a relaxed last night at Hodges Creek, rather than coming in the morning of departure for some rushed packing.)
Details:
Boston to Tortola and charter start:
This went smoothly, despite some anxiety on the first leg, BOS-SJU, 9:20am – 2:16pm. Our scheduled arrival in SJU was actually after the official boarding time for our flight to EIS, but the AA gate agents said not to worry. Then our flight from BOS was delayed 23 minutes in departing, and the gate agents still said not to worry. I worried, but our arrival in SJU was on time. It took us only about ten minutes to walk almost the length of the San Juan AA terminal from our arrival gate to American Eagle, then we even had to wait a few minutes for boarding. We made it, all our checked baggage made it, BVI immigration and customs were no problem, and we were at Sunsail’s Hodges Creek base by a little after 4pm, even before our boat was ready for us. Some minimal check-in formalities, then the promised 20+ minutes on the boat cellphone activating it, a brief look around the dockside convenience store (not on the parking lot side, where Ample Hamper had been), and Sunsail had our boat ready for us, early. Provisioning from Bobby's arrived a bit late. We kept the deliverer in the boat until we checked every item. Some items Bobby's knew they hadn't provided; we found one or two others, and the deliverer adjusted the total.
The Boat: (skip this if you’re not interested in details of small mono-hulls)
A Beneteau Oceanis 343, Lydley (better name than last time’s Avast Behind). This was a new boat from Sunsail’s “premium” fleet (although we got it for deeply discounted standard rates). No “wear and tear” issues. Well set up with four two-speed self-tailing winches and lots of line clutches. Biggest immediate disappointment was the small water capacity – only 68 gallons. Biggest disappointment later on was the rats and mice on board.
The 343 is the smaller of Beneteau’s new monohulls with the steering wheel that pivots 90° to port to provide a clear path through the cockpit on starboard. Another real plus is the helm seat bench that swings out of the way to give access to the swim platform. One hand operation; no more struggling with a heavy chunk of fiberglass, trying to fit it into its recessed position before it slips overboard.
In the cockpit, proper marine closed-cell foam cushions that didn’t absorb much water, dried out quickly. A pleasant surprise; Annapolis Sunsail HQ had assured me that we would have the old hardware store type lawn furniture cushions, which act like sponges and take forever to dry. Maybe the good cushions are a “premium” feature.
Two storage lockers in the cockpit. The smaller one had room for the second anchor and rode, the dock lines, and not much else. The larger one was mostly filled with an almost useless life raft in its hard case, but there was just enough room on top for our wetsuits and snorkeling gear. “Almost useless”, because there was no way my wife and I could have lifted the heavy raft out of the locker. I doubt that even our younger crew could have budged it, but I’m sure it met someone’s idea of what was required to keep some regulatory body or insurance company happy.
Instrument console at the helm had room for lots of instruments. Only one was installed, a combination speed/depth/log readout. Also pasted on the console was an interesting printed warning from Sunsail to trust your GPS or the on-board hand-held bearing compass, rather than the compass in the binnacle. Seemed warranted; the binnacle compass was always off by 5° to 15° compared to other compasses or GPS. When I sit down at the helm, I assume I won’t see forward, since I’m 5’ 2” short. Our 6’ 2” crewmember complained, though, that the too-high console blocked his view.
Lydley had a full mainsail with “stack-pack” furling and two sets of reefing lines. During the boat briefing, I asked our briefer what were the two lines I saw at the mast, unclipped and dangling. “Forward reef lines. You don’t need them, only make it complicated to raise the sail.” I said, “I would like to have them attached.” No comment from briefer. After a moment, I added, “I’ll take care of that myself.” Which I did. The four reefing lines did, indeed, make raising and lowering the main a bit more complicated, but I was really glad that I rigged them when the big winds hit.
Here’s the extra drill: When raising the main, open the line clutches for all four reefing lines, in addition to the mainsheet and vang. Crank up the main, then hand-feed about 4-6” more reefing line through the clutches before you close them. After a few minutes of sailing, visually check that the reefing lines aren’t limiting the raise of the main, then lightly pull the slack out of the reefing lines. After lowering the main, pull slack out of the reefing lines. Pull hard if necessary to get rid of dangling lines. I found that the extra work of taking the slack out of the reefing lines was necessary to keep them from flogging and snagging.
This was my first experience with “stack pack”, lazy jacks rigged to an oversized sail cover that wraps under the mast. It’s supposed to be zipped shut on top after the sail is down, but our briefer told us to skip that. A good thing; the top of the sail cover is about 7’ above the cabin top, way out of my reach. Stack pack is supposed to be almost automatic, no need for you to touch the sail – wrong! The sail never comes down completely, and you have to climb up at the mast (there was a folding mast step for this purpose on our boat) and haul it down the last few feet. Since we weren’t using the zipper, and didn’t wish to disconnect the main halyard shackle (a non-captive screw pin shackle that made me very nervous the one time I did take it off and put it on again), the main was free to rise back up. The solution we used (and I noticed that other boats did the same) was to grab the main halyard after we hauled the last bit of the main down, then pull the halyard down in a bight and loop it over a cleat or clip on the boom (we used the outhaul cleat). Pull the halyard tight at the line clutch and two problems are solved: the main stays down and the halyard is pulled away from the mast and can’t slap.
Below, we had the 3-cabin version: 2 aft cabins for our daughter and her “just a friend”, and the V-berth for us. Enough room inside each berth for a person to stand up and dress. The saloon had a completely adequate drop-down dining table and settees, with no pretense that the settees could be converted into beds. The 3-cabin version loses the separate shower in the head; no great loss, we thought; also makes the nav table smaller.
Both versions have a too-small L-shaped “one-butt” galley, making meal preparation a juggling act. (For example, it was impossible to open the glassware cabinet, behind the stove, while any cookware was on the stove.) An effective but very deep top-opening engine-driven fridge took up nearly half of the galley counter area. (Beneteau standard is a front-opening fridge/freezer; more convenient, less efficient, smaller capacity than the top loader. I assume that Sunsail specified the big top loader.) Anything you wanted was always on the bottom, it seemed. Next time we’ll organize the fridge better, with large zip-close bags, so all the cheeses are together, all the deli is in one place, etc. This should also help avoid the “fridge flavor” which seemed to permeate all of the food by the end of the week. We ate many of our meals on board, and the fridge was large enough for our perishables, the next batch of juices and mixers, and one bag of ice, so we always had cubes for our drinks. One of the prepared meals we brought down was a restaurant type frozen pan of “Cuban Bean Stew” (V-8 brand, bought at our local Pepperidge Farm outlet store, and quite tasty). This needed to be baked for over an hour in a hot oven. I was afraid this would overheat the cabin, but there was enough ventilation that it never became uncomfortable below.
The small water capacity was an issue, helped a little bit by there being a usage meter (in litres!) at the nav station. But you had to remember to reset it when you topped up the tanks.
Now for BillH’s favorite subject: the Holding Tank. Large, about 21 gallons; I don’t think we came close to filling it in two days of use by the four of us. A very simple system: one easy-to-operate valve with a large red handle under the sink. In the closed position, the head pumped into the holding tank. In the open position, the holding tank emptied itself by gravity, no pumping needed, and the head pumped overboard. We put a label on the helm instrument panel so we would remember to open the valve in deep water, close it in shallow waters.
Two more Sunsail annoyances, in addition to the unhooked reefing lines: only one well-worn winch handle on board, and we had to ask more than once for a second, which finally arrived, even more worn (causing difficulties in removing the handles after they locked in to a winch); also, we really had to insist in order to have an air pump for our inflatable dinghy.
Next installment: the Blow-By-Blow report.
