1555 - 18.51.76'N x 74.40.86'W

"The fore T'gallant needs to only come in a bit more" I said to "Woody" van Grondelle and Diven Mohanlall. "After coffee," replied Woody. Yeah, it, like most things, can wait until after coffee. It was a cloudy morning, with little wind and we had just finished setting all "plain sail".

With everything but studding sails set we were trimming sails until our mandatory coffee break.
While our break was well underway, I felt it before I saw it - a chilled wind whistled past the back of my ears and raised the hairs on my neck. I stood up, and without a spoken word a number of the crew around me stood up as well. Turning around I saw that it was closer than I thought; awash in the jib-jab banter of break I did not see that the dark clouds behind my back had left the horizon to loom over us. Like a big, black island moving over gray, cloudy swells it came toward us.

The wind picked up and the ship rapidly gained speed as water surged through the port, leeward scuppers. Then the rain fell. Captain Robbert called for the skysails to be taken in, and I quickly eased off their halyards to ease the skysail yards down the mast to relieve pressure aloft and spill wind. Then the upper staysails, royal square sails and our outermost headsails had to come in.

The port watch was summoned from slumber and onto deck with two rings of the muster bell and they spilled out of the aft watertight doors. Seeing the situation they already knew what to do, and helped us on starboard watch to bring in our light-weather sail. Arms strained on down-hauls as we fought the wind for our canvas and sheets.  After the outer jib had been hauled down into the head-rig, Nate Engel and I quickly donned harnesses and scampered out into the head-rig to help Diven pull the errant folds of canvas dow and then "gasket" it with a line to tie the sail to the bowsprit. As we finished, Nate, eyes wide open, said "This is what I was waiting for!".

Waiting for indeed! We have had little wind since we left Panama and the engines have toiled 'round the clock. We kept talking about how we wanted wind for our sails to do their quiet work…wish granted - and then some! I remember looking aloft in the midst of our situation at the fore skysail mast (highest part of the mast) and seeing the whole mast jerk visibly as the wind pulled it (not a comfortable sight) until the skysail braces were hauled tight to steady the yard and mast against the wind.

It all ended in much the manner as it started - quickly! The whole squall lasted no more than fifteen minutes. As the dark, rowdy clouds rolled on, they greedily took their wind with them, leaving little more than scraps for our canvas after. After it was over and our adrenaline came back down, Diven noted that he would "sleep like a baby" afterwards.

Captain Robbert told us that for a few minutes our ship was making 9 knots, much better speed than before, and that the wind was probably about a Force 6 (about 25-30 knots of wind). Not too wild, but not weather you want your light-weather sails aloft in. It is too bad it could not last longer, for the wind peeled away, and the little there was left began to come from the direction we needed to go - The North-East, past Jamaica with Haiti to starboard with the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti ahead of us. All morning we have seen Haiti windward of us. Captain Robbert says this area is usually full of Haitian fishermen, but so far, few are to be seen.

Later in the galley during lunch I asked Woody; "Did we find out who it was that was whistling?" He laughed heartily, saying "no". It is an old superstition on sailing ships not to whistle, as it is said to "call the wind" and invite the sailor to a right clobbering from spiteful wind angry at being teased in such a manner. It is our explanation for this eventful morning!

By Matthew Maples