november/december 2016cruisingworld.com21Y
esterday I visited Windward,
a hamlet on the far side of
Carriacou, where I’m anchored in
Tyrrel Bay. Windward is so laid-
back that the palm trees yawn,
but it’s famous for one noble her-
itage: boatbuilding. The people
of Windward have been hand-
building traditional island boats
for generations with native timbers
and simple hand tools, the lines and
designs ingrained in their very mar-
row, being descendants of Scottish
shipwrights, Irish fi shermen and
abducted Africans. I’d heard there
was a new vessel, a big one, being
built, so I went to check it out.
It wasn’t hard to fi nd. Boats are
built on the beach in Windward,
and everyone knows about it. I
asked Cee Pee, the driver of the
bright red minibus I took from
Hillsborough, to tell me where
I could fi nd the boat, and he
dropped me off at the path leading
to the building site. Clearly they
weren’t trying to keep it a secret.
The proud builder, Nero
McLawrence, was happy to show
me around the 65-footer. “She’ll
be sloop-rigged when she’s done
and carry a 400-horsepower
Cummins diesel, being mainly
for hauling interisland cargo,” the
67-year-old builder/owner/captain
explained. “We been at it a year
now. It’ll be about one more till
she’s ready to splash.”
I asked McLawrence if he knew
my friend Capt. John Smith, who
has been sailing the traditional
Windward-built sloop Mermaid all
over the Caribbean for decades.
“Oh, sure, I know him,” he said.
“My cousin Zephrin built that
boat back in 1996. I hear John is
in Panama now.” I told him he in
fact had been in Panama — I’d
fi rst met the salty sailing legend in
Bocas del Toro — but last I heard,
he was hanging out in the Bay
Islands, off Honduras.
I happened to catch the same
red minibus back to Hillsborough
that afternoon. “You found the
boat OK?” Cee Pee inquired.
“No problem,” I replied. Then
I asked, “Say, do you happen to
know John Smith?”
“Oh, yeah, mon. He has one of
Zephrin’s boats for a long time
now. I heard he was in Panama.”
Carriacou is a small, friendly
place. After a while, everybody
knows everybody. — Tor PinneyBOAT’S
A- BUILDING IN
WINDWARD
UNDERWAYCRW0217_underway.indd 21 11/22/16 1:40 PM