Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 27:16

"And running under the lee of a small island called Cauda, we were able, with difficulty, to secure the boat:" — Acts 27:16 (ASV)

And running under a certain island which is called Clauda.—Some manuscripts give the variant reading Cauda, which agrees more closely with the form Gaudos found in Pliny and Suidas. This, in turn, has passed into the modern Gozzo. The island lay about twenty-three miles to the south-west of Crete.

Here they got under the lee of the shore and availed themselves of the temporary shelter to prepare the ship more thoroughly than had been possible before to encounter the fury of the storm. The first step was to get the boat, which until then had apparently been towed through the waves, on board the ship. This, as St. Luke says, was a matter of much work (literally, we were with difficulty able to get hold of the boat), partly, we may believe, because it was not easy to keep the vessel with her head to the wind and so avoid the motion which would have impeded the operation, partly, because the boat was probably full of water.