Two Bermudians who rode out Hurricane Igor on the water enjoyed weathering the storm—with only a few moments of disquiet at the height of the winds.

Denis Owen, a partner at Atlantic Mooring Maintenance, went out to his 70-foot tour boat the Uber Vida on Saturday morning and spent Hurricane Igor on board the vessel with Atlantic head of operations Calvin Ming.

"It was a pretty fantastic experience," Mr. Owen said. "The mooring was done really well and it's a really good boat. It held on fine, straight to the wind. Sunday morning around 9 a.m. the wind started really picking up and got stronger throughout the day. Sunday round midnight the wind was getting really strong, and then it started to change direction. The winds went round from the northeast to the southwest. It started to get a little scary round that time. We had some powerful gusts shaking the boat, and we could hear the rigging on the sailboats moaning in the wind." The boat made it through undamaged.

From the Uber Vida, moored in Ely's Harbour in Sandys, the last of Hurricane Igor was the most intense phase as the storm made its way around Bermuda. The winds, which carried driving rain and blasts of spray, intensified as they shifted direction. "Between 3 and 6 a.m. in the morning it swung right around 180 degrees," Mr. Owen said. "Around 4 a.m. the wind was really picking up. We kept watch until dawn. Then we jumped into the whaler and went out on the water and started checking around the Island."

One of the boats Atlantic Moorings helped secure, he said, was the Spirit of Bermuda, where a crew of eight, including former St. George's Mayor E. Michael Jones, also rode out Igor. According to Mr. Jones, the Spirit successfully tested its heavily-weighted hurricane moorings from a position near Two Rock Passage off Hamilton Harbour.

"It went very well," Mr. Jones said. "We've got a great crew, young and old, experienced and inexperienced. And our captain Stephen Colley is an experienced and wise skipper to have. Everybody pitched in. There was no damage to the boat. It was a really good time — I'm very pleased to have been here."

The highest winds recorded aboard the Spirit were 80 knots (92 mph). "Certainly there were high winds blowing water across us," Mr. Jones said. "We couldn't see the land very often in the heavy squalls."

The Spirit swung around 180 degrees from its position on Saturday, he said, with the top wind speed recorded at 10 p.m. on Sunday night while many of the crew were asleep – a testament to the soundness of the craft. "This morning when we woke up and saw daylight, we knew we'd rode it out and done it safely," he said.