A few people stood on shore and waved as a 37-foot wooden sloop passed the rocky jetty of Nanny Cay Marina on Sunday afternoon. 
One of the two crewmembers began to set the jib as they reached Sir Francis Drake Channel — and then up went the mainsail. Although it flew the national flag of Antigua, which flapped in a brisk northeast wind, the boat’s true origin was Carriacou — a 13-square-mile island just north of Grenada, where it was built on the beach and launched more than 30 years ago.
Next stop: West Palm Beach, Florida.
“Unless we have to stop for some reason,” said Denis Dowling, the 30-year-old captain of the boat, a few days earlier.
He sat on the cabin-top of Summer Wind, a traditional Carriacou sloop that was docked in Nanny Cay for about three weeks before Sunday’s departure.
“We might stop in Eleuthera [in the Bahamas] or just go straight to West Palm Beach in one shot,” he said. “It should take seven to ten days, somewhere around there.”
See the June 27, 2013 edition for full coverage.
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