Esther and Lincoln are friends of mine from St. Lucia. They have a Leopard 4600 catamaran named Cyrilla, and I joined Lincoln on an Atlantic crossing to the Azores in May of 2025.

Cyrilla

This is my first experience offshore in a catamaran. The differences between monohulls and catamarans are significant, and it takes some getting used to. Primarily, the catamaran has a different sea motion than a monohull. While I’m used to extreme angles of heel, lateral movement on a monohull is like a pendulum, and the body adjusts subconsciously to the regular movement. Catamarans, on the other hand, don’t heel at all. But there is a constant jerking motion laterally that is difficult to get used to.

Preparations

The preparations for the voyage were a bit convoluted. I stored Zanshin in Jolly Harbour, Antigua. Lincoln sailed up from St. Lucia and picked me up, whereupon we sailed to St. Kitts and Nevis to pick up Esther. From there, we sailed to St. Martin for several days of provisioning and then sailed back to St. Kitts and Nevis to drop Esther off again.