A bit more on the passage from Bermuda to Azores
11 June 2018
We are convinced that the North Atlantic is difficult as most boats that arrive in Horta have had too much as well as too little wind at times. This year the traditional approach of “sail north for more wind and sail south for less wind” just did not apply. Fronts coming off the east coast of North America and a depression south-east of Newfoundland particularly affected our passage.
We were delayed for over an hour leaving St George’s on Monday 21st May as port control would not give us permission to head off through the Town Cut until two cruise ships has cleared the crossing channel. Then we motored 13 hours NNE picking up wind at 0045 ship’s time on Tuesday 22nd May at 33 deg 30’N, with a broad reach in 12kts SW wind.
Through Tuesday and Wednesday we kept having to gybe the boat to maintain a course that would keep us south of 35deg N in favourable wind. By 1800 we had a second reef in the main and we were advised on the evening weather forecast to head back SE to 34deg N.
On the morning of Thursday 24th may we had a couple of squalls with wind to >34kts and sustained wind 22-28kts. Late afternoon we had a squall with wind to 38kts. Into Friday and the wind backed to SE and then NE and we were closed hauled with a course south of east. Lots of rain but we deployed parts of the cockpit enclosure to keep us dry(ish).
By 0730 on Saturday morning the wind died to 2-5kts and we were motoring at 1600rpm making 5.5kts. Sunday afternoon saw the wind pick up slightly and we deployed the cruising chute for 5 hours – it was really very pleasant. From Sunday evening to Tuesday morning we motored. Then we had the SW wind back and it picked up during the day so that by late afternoon we had 18-20kts and then a couple of squall to 33kts.
With wind throughout Wednesday at 20-25kts we rolled away the genoa and deployed the staysail – this made the motion more comfortable and gave better control to the autopilot. We had switched from the windvane steering as it was having trouble coping with the waves hitting us on the quarter.
Thursday 31st May gave us sustained wind of 25-28kts with gusts to 32kts, but with double reefed main and staysail we were making 7.5kts. Friday 1st June was more of the same, as was Saturday when we started making more northing. The wind eased overnight into Sunday but by midday was back again at 23kts gusting 30kts. However, as forecast the wind then eased and by 2300 we had to turn on the engine as boat speed was less than 3kts and after nearly two weeks we were keen to arrive.
As the forecast on Thursday had been for strong winds moving north to Flores, our originally planned destination, it was looking prudent to avoid that anchorage in >40kts wind. So we resorted to Plan B and decided on Horta as our Azores landfall.
We motored on during Monday and arrived at Horta after 14 days and 15 minutes.
Our overall passage was exactly 2000nm, some 300nm further than we anticipated but dodging gales and calms was worth it albeit we did have a bit of both.
We motored for 90 hours and our fuel consumption was 3 litres per hour, so with our total capacity of 500 litres we had plenty of fuel in hand.
We saw lots of Portuguese Man O’War jellyfish, some 8 cargo ships of which one called us up as they had received an alert from UK MRCC saying that a yacht was reported to be in difficulty – we never found out the story. We also saw three yachts heading for the Azores.
We called in daily to the Trans-Atlantic Cruisers Net on 12350kHz at 2130UTC and spoke to Chris Parker about our course and weather on most days at 2200UTC on the same frequency.
The passage could not have been more varied in terms of sail plan and motoring.
Our friend Des was brilliant as a crew member and his presence on this difficult passage was invaluable. We are very grateful.
We tied up outside two other boats near the Marina Office, cleared in and then that first beer for two weeks ….