Is Caribbean Cruising Safe?

Ahoy, all. This week held a tragic incident and loss in our cruising community. Here is a link to their GoFundMe, which is helping the family with the recovery and funeral costs.

In today’s letter:

• Caribean Cruising: The question of safety.

• Race Updates: Birthdays and broken booms for the winners.

• Sailing Snippets: Roasted Dufour, $2 Catamaran, AirbnBoat.

Is Caribbean Cruising Safe?

Why the trouble centers around two islands.

In light of the tragic event that occurred this week in Grenada and St. Vincent, here is some context and resources for safety in the Caribbean. There is never a way to rationalize such violence, but hopefully, this helps answer the questions we’ve been getting from friends and family who aren’t in the cruising world.

Is the Caribbean safe for cruisers? Yes, it is one of the safest cruising grounds in the world. However, we are talking only about the Eastern Caribbean, from Puerto Rico to Grenada. This is the area where the vast majority of cruisers go, and where the charter bases are located (besides Belize).

The Western and Southern parts of the Caribbean, that border South America, are where the majority of serious incidents occur. Crime in the Grenadines is most often tied back to spillover from the instability in Venezuela. So, looking at the Caribbean as a whole can skew the data to seem more dangerous than it is for the average cruiser.

However, the Eastern Caribean is not without its incidents. The Caribbean Safety and Security Net documents theft, piracy, robbery, and assault across the Caribbean. Their interactive map tracks the locations of the incident. From looking at the map, you can see that:

• Violent incidents in the Eastern Caribbean are exceedingly rare.

• Almost all thefts are dinghy-related.

• There is a concentration of incidents from Dominica to St Vincent.

Dominica and St. Vincent have long had reputations (deserved or not) among the cruising community as being unsafe, or at least a little rough around the edges. In the past decade, Dominica has instituted harbor patrols and security is now excellent. St. Vincent is still catching up and has been free of major incidents for years, up until now.

The geography of those islands explains some, but not all of the cluster of incidents in that area. A lack of natural harbors in Dominica and St. Vincent lead to slower infrastructure development and a decreased tourism industry. Without those, the police presence was considerably less than in neighboring islands.

While the risk is higher in those areas, we must credit the people, who we have found to be overall some of the kindest and most hospitable of anywhere in the Caribbean. They are also home to some of the last truly untouched landscapes, where you can reach out and touch a lost time - one that has been bulldozed over by developers on many other islands.

Race Updates

A birthday and broken boom at the finish line.

Global Solo Challenge: February 24th at 14:03 UTC, 3:03 pm local time, Philippe Delamare on Mowgli took first place in the round-the-world race by the three great capes, solo and non-stop. He spent 147 days, 1 hour, 3 minutes and 37s at sea. Delamare’s expected finish was delayed by a few days due to deteriorating seas in the area. He suffered a broken boom during a knockdown in 6-metre waves, two days before crossing the treacherous finish line in Marina Coruña.

ARKEA Ultim Challenge: It’s hard to think that barely a month and a half ago kicked off the inaugural solo, non stop, round the world race on on Ultim multihulls.

After 50 days 19 hours and 7 minutes and 42 seconds at sea, Charles Caudrelier on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild took first place in the ARKEA Ultim Challenge (and just 1 day after his 50th birthday!). His victory caps off a 20-year run of prestigious racing titles, from transatlantic, to round-the-world.

Caudrelier grew up sailing and later joined the Merchant Marines, where he started to cut his teeth in the racing circuit. He won the Solitaire du Figaro at the age of 30, then went on to win three Transat Jacques Vabre wins, two Volvo Ocean Races, and a Route du Rhum victory two years ago.

But for all his high seas high-intensity racing prowess, he still has a love of cruising. “I get seasick, I don’t like it when things move and in fact most of all I like dead calm”, he recently admitted. His next plans are to take his kids surfing, and get a long deserved nap.

Sailing Snippets

The best clips & clicks from the week

Roasted Dufour: LadyKSailing roasts the new Dufour lineup to a perfect medium rare, dubbing the new Dufour interiors IKEA-chic. Funnily enough, we also called some of the designs at the Annapolis Sailboat Show IKEA-esque a few months ago. Glad to see we’re not alone.

$2 Catamaran: These guys bought a catamaran for $2, and are documenting the whole repair process on Tiktok. Because of course a $2 catamaran needs a whole lotta TLC. The account is brand new, so you’re still early. That’s an instant-follow for us.

AirbnBoat: This startup les Sentiers de la Mer lets sailors connect with hikers and travelers to book room and board aboard their boat in stopover ports.

That’s all for today, stay safe out there and we’ll ketch ya next week folks.