THE AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE IVAN

Paul Dale recounts the lessons he learned rebuilding his Dufour 41 Alexa on the devastated Caribbean island of Grenada in 2004

- Paul Dale

The call came through from my wife while I was packing up and getting ready to leave my Dublin hotel room after breakfast for a client meeting.

She was in our London home. ‘Have you seen the weather in the Caribbean? Turn on your TV!’

I switched on the BBC news, and a weather map showed the symbol of a rotating hurricane where it just shouldn’t be, hugging the equator at 10° North, and heading for Grenada – where our Dufour 41 Alexa was laid up in Spice Island Marine Services. The weatherman suggested that the hurricane – named Ivan and category 4 heading to 5 – would probably veer northwest as it approached the eastern Caribbean, but I felt very worried.

THE YARD IN GRENADA

It was early September. Four months earlier, having completed the ARC and cruised the southern Caribbean, we had decided to lay Alexa up for the hurricane season in Grenada. We had thought of Trinidad, 90 miles to the south, but Grenada was considered outside the hurricane belt and was acceptable to insurance companies for hurricane layup. A lovely place to be, and good flight connections back to the UK. So, one sunny morning we chugged through the crowded anchorage of Prickly Bay to the travel hoist and had her hauled.

The travel hoist plonked her down by the fence and she was propped up by seven side stands, in the rather flimsy Caribbean way.

At the office, I asked Susie – the somewhat intimidating office manager – how often they had hurricanes. She said, ‘Every 50 years and the last one was 49 years ago.’ I laughed and asked, ‘What action do you take if one happens?’ ‘Well, the boats get laid down.’ I said, ‘Really, you put the boats on their sides?’ and she said, ‘No, the wind lays ’em quite flat!’ She wasn’t laughing.