After beating up and around the eastern tip of Jamaica (around Point Morant), we found ourselves becalmed in relatively quiet seas with barely a breeze. After frustratingly watching our track turn north (courtesy of the caribbean current), we cut the engine on. From that point forward the winds slowly filled in and began to build. Here's a timeline of the sail changes we made:
Motoring, mainsail only.
Light air, shut off motor, keep mainsail, raise mizzen, #1 headsail, #4 on inner staysail, mizzen staysail.
Drop mizzen staysail.
Drop #4 on inner staysail.
Drop mizzen.
Swap #1 headsail with #3 headsail.
Put one reef in the mainsail.
Put second reef in the mainsail.
Swap #3 headsail with storm jib, raise mizzen with single reef.
Drop mainsail (flying 'jib and jigger').
Drop mizzen.
At this point, the winds were blowing about 25 kts with 7-10 ft seas coming onto the port beam. We spent the night of the 15th flying nothing but the storm jib. The rocking and rolling made belowdecks look like a snowglobe.
On our last day the winds lightened up a tad. We cruised into Cartagena with our storm jib and double reefed mainsail.
Largely uneventful, but a workout nonetheless.
TSS