HURRICANE BERYL

[night0wl]

I know it may be a bit premature to be asking this, but how does the community see boat insurance regulations changing. I am old enough to remember when Grenada was "out of hurricane belt" and was safe haven for insurance coverage...until 2004/Hurricane Ivan. Now, we have Beryl as a Cat4/Cat3 in *LATE JUNE/EARLY JULY* no less. A cabo verde storm! This strong and this early is just scary. You shouldn't see cabo verdes like this till September!!!

With Beryl direct path just barely missing Tobago and just a few dozen miles from hitting Trinidad, will that island *too* be considered in hurricane belt? If so, getting north of Florida and south to South American mainland feels would be a death-knell to the casual cruiser, given the extra distance to cover and the danger that is Venezuela.

I for one am watching this storm and its after-effects very carefully..

[Kettlewell]

If so, getting north of Florida and south to South American mainland feels would be a death-knell to the casual cruiser, given the extra distance to cover and the danger that is Venezuela.

It's relatively easy to sail north in the spring with favorable winds and currents all the way to Maine and Canada. Plus, the southwest Caribbean is fantastic cruising even during hurricane season though even Providencia Island has been hit in recent years. Get down to Panama, the San Blas and Colombia and you should be good.

[Ryban]

Live feed from Curriacou:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihE67OriiN4

Looks like it just went down as the eyewall was bearing down on them, might come back up.

[opencruiser]

[QUOTE=Ryban;3913330]Quite a large exodus south occurring now.

This is one of the few bays in Trinidad that some of the boats decided to use to ride out the storm. You'd normally never see boats anchor here along what is known as the Foreshore. The weather was only mildly unpleasant for the last 12 hours but nothing close I can imagine to SVG or GND.

[thomm225]

Just to give folks an idea of how powerful these storms and their surge can be, the apartment complex where I lived a couple years before Cat 4 Ivan is about 8 miles inside the Pensacola Beach Barrier Island.

The lower floors of the apartment had 8' of water in them when the surge came in around 3 am.

The I-10 bridge that was taken out was maybe 9-10 miles inside the barrier island.

All the anchored out boats in the area near that apartment were taken out by a floating dock that had been lifted over its securing pilings and came through the anchored boats like a gigantic bowling ball

https://www.tcpalm.com/picture-galle...la/2052705001/

[Kettlewell]

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell reported that Hurricane Beryl, a Category 4 storm, has caused extensive damage across Carriacou and Petite Martinique, flattening much of Carriacou in just half an hour.

The hurricane struck Carriacou around 11 am on Monday, leading to widespread destruction.

There are no injuries or loss of life have been reported thus far.

https://www.caribbeannationalweekly....u-and-grenada/

[Montanan]

"H​urricane Beryl has made landfall in the Windward Islands of the eastern Caribbean Sea.

B​eryl's center moved over Carriacou Island in the Grenadines at 11:10 a.m. EDT. Maximum sustained winds were 150 mph, making Beryl a strong Category 4.

T​hat makes Beryl the strongest hurricane by wind speed on record near Grenada or St. Vincent and the Grenadines."

Hurricane Beryl is now in the eastern Caribbean Sea after hammering the Windward Islands.

It's a threat to Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula this week.

It's still too soon to tell where it will track in the southwest Gulf of Mexico this weekend.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/to...d6198dc6&ei=47

[Kettlewell]

I can't vouch for the authenticity of this video, but if it is legit not looking good on Carriacou:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7ce0TUdiGc

[thomm225]

The video above is pretty much what it is like with a Cat 4.

75% of the homes in Pensacola needed new rooves afterward.

I was at a lady friends house the night Ivan came through,

She had already camped out under her stairwell, but I was in the living room listening to the radio which ran on batteries.

When you are inside though and it's dark, you can only hear it after the power goes out, but you can open the door and look out when you want while looking out for flying debris.

When I would look out, the trees didn't just lean in one direction, but went back and forth very rapidly due to the holes in the wind like when sailing in disturbed weather. It isn't a steady breeze.

The thing that got me though were the drops in pressure like you were suddenly at the top of a mountain.

After the first station's antenna tower was knocked out, I found another channel in Mobile that was celebrating the storm turning East just a bit.

So, I was happy too until I realized more Easterly was where I was in Pensacola!?

I was having a few beers also and when I would be heading from the bathroom to the living room a couple times these huge pressure changes happened and I just hit the deck.

This happened 2-3 times.

I was thinking it might be tornadoes passing over as her house was on the downside of a hill.

When I drove back to my apartment the morning after which was normally a 10 minutes drive, it took me about 45 minutes to find a way where downed trees weren't blocking the road.

I drove over numerous downed power lines though.

I bought my first cell phone days later when Verizon opened on generator power so I could contact my workforce which had evacuated and couldn't easily get back.

The curfew started about this time. Everyone had to be off the streets at 4 pm until 8 am the next morning due to looting.

So good luck heaving to in a Cat 4.

[SV Pegaso]

Originally Posted by Ryban

Too early to tell, but could be a direct hit on the Tobago Cays. Wonder how the reef will hold up there.

Huge exodus underway from Grenada.

We talked on VHF what we should call this "flotilla". I think we should call it the "2024 Beryl Run" and make a T-shirt.



I have not heard of any boat issues (of about 100 boats) but most, like me took the Sunday morning weather report as the final decision maker. That brought most of the boats at nighttime into Trinidad. Not a fun proposition to look for a night anchorage in unknown teritory with all spots taken or other boats still searching.

[Renegde_Sailor]

I do know there are a whole lot of older boats down that way, many of which are in less than stellar condition, I wonder how they have fared?

[Ryban]

Unconfirmed reports from the boats tied up in the mangroves in Carriacou are along the lines of "boats flipped" and "piled up" -- not clear if this was referring to the mangrove boats or the boatyard boats, or both.

I've seen photos on the facebook groups from the Tyrell Bay boatyard -- all the boats are down on the ground, cats flipped.

In the southern portion of Grenada, it looks like most have faired well other than boats dragging here and there, especially when the winds turned to southerlies and shot into the bays.

S/V Elysium, that was riding the storm out at sea, has also made it back and appears to be anchored.

Drone footage from Carriacou:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hlhqkm-tjQ

[Seaworthy Lass]

Good news regarding Elysium and Smokyjim, the two boats seen at sea just south of Grenada this morning. Elysium had been milling around the SW tip for about 10 hours at least. Smokyjim was heading south at 6 knots. By 10 am the signal from both was no longer picked up.

Two hours ago Elysium was in St David’s harbour on the south side of Grenada. An hour ago Smokyjim was nearly in Trinidad.

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by Ryban

(Stuff deleted)

Drone footage from Carriacou:

Quite impressive to see the variation in damage to the buildings. One with the roof undisturbed and one next to it with the roof mostly gone. Building standards matter. Probably no different than the boaters who, through wit and wisdom know where and how to tie up.

[Ryban]

Beryl is now a Cat 5 hurricane. The earliest forming Cat 5 in the Atlantic and only the second ever Category 5 hurricane ever to form before August.

One outlier storm obviously doesn’t necessarily equate to a product of climate change, but we sure have been seeing a lot of outliers lately. Curious to see how insurance companies react in the next few years.