Cruising World - May 2016

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may 2016

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forward as best as I could.”

As the possibility of dragging onto the

beach became a probability in her mind,

Ziga contemplated how she might maneu-

ver Bamboo in for a soft landing.

Suddenly Triumph, owned by a longtime

cruising buddy, smashed into her bow.

According to accounts from several

cruisers, a skipper trying to reposition

himself had apparently panicked and

was motoring full-throttle through the

crowded anchorage, snagging anchors as

he went along. Triumph, an aging Morgan

Out Island 41, and another boat, Anania,

were cinched into a scrum, choked up

on their rodes and squeezing Bamboo

between them. The middle boat was pum-

meled. Eventually rodes were severed, and

a badly battered Bamboo limped onto a

mooring just downwind.

Weeks later, Ziga sat aboard Triumph as

she readied to fl y back to the U.S., leaving

her irreparably damaged boat behind. She

says the rogue skipper’s insurance company

has denied her claim because the two boats

did not actually make contact.

“I’ve lost my most valiant friend,

Bamboo. She was the coolest boat. Smarter

than me. She took care of me on many

occasions,” she says wistfully. “Still, I didn’t

expect it to end so horribly.”

— Scott Neuman

Bob had tried to motor into the wind to
keep his 44-pound Bruce (attached to 110
feet of 3/8-inch chain) from tripping. “I
was mostly successful, but when the boat
would fall of the wind, there was an unbe-
lievably tremendous tug on the anchor,” he
says. “Eventually it let loose.”
As they drifted toward a rocky cut, Liz
says she recited the Lord’s Prayer. The
fl ukes on the Bruce snagged the sand once
more. Arapesh held fi rm.
Others not far away weren’t as lucky. A
catamaran broke a bridle, went abeam to
the wind and waves, and plowed ashore.
Miraculously, it washed up on a dock, but
not without considerable damage. Two
monohulls ended up on the rocks nearby;
one of them caught fi re and burned a few
days later. Both were declared a total loss.
The Barths’ hefty anchor rode snapped, but
Curt and Kathy were able to keep Five &
Dime, their Beneteau First 42, of the beach.
Bahamians, of course, were also in the
thick of it. Despite dealing with their own
problems, many managed to help out the
community of cruisers, who contribute
a vital boost to the local economy. At the
height of the storm, Bahamians set out in
sturdy center-console runabouts, going
from boat to boat to make sure everyone
was safe. When the electricity failed at
Black Point settlement, residents pointed
their cars at the broad anchorage and
turned on headlights to provide shoreside
reference points.
As the derecho moved south and east
through the islands, it intensifi ed. By the
time it reached the cruising mecca of
George Town at about 1900, winds were
reportedly in the 70-knot range, with gusts
even higher. Its approach was also pre-
ceded by a distinctive sky.
“It was a really calm night. We were get-
ting the grill set up,” says Cathy Kreyling,
of White Bird, a Saga 43. She and her hus-
band, Peter, had just made a pitcher of rum
punch, thinking they were in for a peace-
ful evening on the hook at Honeymoon
Beach, of Stocking Island.
Cathy describes the sky as “incredibly
dramatic.” “There was a wall of thunder-
clouds to the south. And if you looked
to the north, it was just black,” she says.
“There was actually a rainbow with light-
ning behind it. I had never seen anything
like it.”
In the adjacent anchorage, 52-year-old
singlehander Ziga York looked up from
her book and realized that the wind had
picked up. She saw that the transom of
her Pearson 33, Bamboo, had swung toward
Volleyball Beach, dangerously close to
where it becomes shallow close to shore.
“By then it was dark,” Ziga recalls. Soon,
she says, “The winds were so high that
you could barely do anything. I powered