Tom Cunliffe

While most of us would love to sail away to a world of permanent blue water, the best many can realistically hope for is a couple of weeks chartering every so often. I’ve done my time with the long-term ocean wallopers, but it’s a while back now, so when I found myself in the Caribbean a couple of years ago, hacking to windward from Grenada, it was as a “helper” aboard a modern 50-footer trying to make the best of a period of typically strong trade winds. We’d squandered our weather gauge downwind in the Grenadines and were now under the cosh to get north to St Lucia for catching our flights. Despite the attractions of flying fish, intermittent blue skies and the occasional palm tree waving in the distance, the going was tough. We managed well enough, however, until we emerged from behind the