atalntic crossing 2012 -2013

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leeonjonjon

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hi all

myself and partner are thinking of our next steps on our year break cruising. We have made it to gib and are contempleting the atlantic circuit, we know the arc is full so cant do that are there any other boats heading west who fancy an email net for security, also any advice on weather nets or ports in canaries not full with arc boats will be greatfully recieved. After reports of full harbours we were thinking maderia straight to barbados via the usual southern route, leaving late nov december

Lee
 
Bare in mind I have not been down there for a few years..

Just a brief outline...

Funchal Marina in Madera is small and always full..
The marina to the east Quinto Del Lorde, is miles from anywhere

Porto Santo is a good stop over.

Arrive at the top of the Canary chain, Lanzarotte,

Graciosa has a good anchorage, worth a visit

Marinas Calero and Playa Blanca are good

Have not been to Fuentaventura

Arrive in Los Palmas, Grand Canaria after the ARC has gone.

Give Marina Tenerife a go in err... Tenerife


And San Sebastan in La Gomera is worth a visit
 
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Get to the Canaries In early November to mid December. Great cruising for a month.

Avoid Gran Canaria until the ARC leaves.

Join the NARC [ Not The ARC ] the unofficial group that crosses with or after the ARC.

Leave when the Trade winds are well established. IMHO tieing yourself to a fixed departure date risks getting beat up.

The year I had signed up for the ARC they left in a SW and 3 days later lots of boats had made less than a 100 miles. I stayed tied up leaving when the wind was blowing from the East.
 
Get to the Canaries just after the ARC leaves. That's when a lot of NARC boats arrive. Have a potter round the pontoons to see when boats are leaving and to discuss a net. An email net may be possible, but perhaps limited in number, many long distance boats carry SSB and on the crossing use a 4MhZ frequency. If you want to listen to the net Sony sell an SSB receiver, set it to upper sideband and then the frequency they are using. It has a long aerial you will need to string up.

If you don't have easterly winds but do have wind that you can sail south then set off south until you reach the trades. You will see the small fluffy clouds marching west before you reach them.
 
leeonjonjon said:
hi all

myself and partner are thinking of our next steps on our year break cruising. We have made it to gib and are contempleting the atlantic circuit, we know the arc is full so cant do that are there any other boats heading west who fancy an email net for security, also any advice on weather nets or ports in canaries not full with arc boats will be greatfully recieved. After reports of full harbours we were thinking maderia straight to barbados via the usual southern route, leaving late nov december

Lee
Click to expand...

Madeira quite long way out and way NW of the southern route.

Your target for calm weathr lovliness should be to leave Gib late august (ok, the day after national day cos national day sept 10th is such a laugh) and get down to canaries early. Whereas later the weather from gib south can be more ugh cra****y bang arg.

Las Palmas will be chockka until the arc leaves but totally empty thereafter. And easily the best place for provisioning.

Before then Puerto Calero in Lanzarote is nice enough? Or rubicon? Or Graciosa is cheap?

Bluemoment.com has a nice list and review of loadsa canarian marinas, very thorough. He reckons Gomera quite pleasant.

Some set off exactly the same day as the arc cos it is a very jolly start day, lotsa boats whizzing about. Just tootle along on the far end of the line. They will def have some radio nets, altho meh, some of them peter out got it’s all so CRRRR Please repeat? etc

It’s free to anchor in the bay of Las Palmas, arcies quivering inside the marina on the saturday night is an excellent time to have a giant onboard party, perhaps.

In gibraltar you should report in to Hercules Sailing school and the strangely named captain sensible and his (much) better half will have good advice for gib and canaries.
 
email net for security

indeedy, i wasn’t gonna say anything ....

For the Original Poster ... although it might seem otherwise, there is no tangible “security” in going with the arc, nor with an “email net”. Not really. If you really needed help, you’d need a big ship or an emergency surgeon right this minute, or a helicopter (cept their range is 300miles, ish) and so on.

ARC participants who need help get the same priortity from MRCC anywhere on the planet (get a satphone and plug in their number) and usually they get sent a ship, not another 40 footer. If you are on the arc and have a problem, they say that you can ring their office in Cowes and leave a message. Or, you can call the Marine Rescue Coordination Centre. I wonder how many leave a message with the arc office, hm?

With/without the arc, and in almost any circumstances - you are on your own. Get used to it and prepare accordingly.

If you prepare properly (with spares, thinking things through, looking at weather instead of setting off “on sunday 22rd Nov” or whatever like the arc does (and has to, for organisational reasons)) ...you are better off alone - cos in a rally you’ll get called to help out the numpties who didn’t think it all through and get the spares and/or were unluckier. In a so-called group, you may assume a level of support that in fact is not there. It is not like all going walking/climbing up a mountain together - you are miles apart and even witin sight the swell makes getting stuff to each other almost impossible - you would only try it for the most dire emergencies.

You would have to work hard to stay in sight of each other after the first day - even with the arc. I started 3 days late one year, sailed through 150 boats and actually saw just three. Mostly i see no boats apart from first and last days near port.

I and others reckon the arc takes 10-20% of yots doing the atlantic crossing - so there’s 1-2000 a year

If you tootle down to canaries starting sometime about now you will get into Las Palmas marina, ask nicely, smile a lot.

LP is something of a crossroads of world cruising. Never mind the arc - some serious guys are there from sept and october - arcies have more tendency to arrive, park up, fly back to uk and come back just a few days before the start in late nov. But not all do this . I have been to a fair few marinas and boaty spots, writing this from Fiji... and las palmas is a world sailing/cruising crossroads not like anywhere else, really - it’s THE stop-off spot for all departing european boats en route to cape town, s america, caribbee, and for any US boats returining from european cruise.

You could easily go south early (sept/oct) to LP and then head south again to Cape Verdes, and take shorter storm-free earlier crossing to brazil? Eg Fortaleza. In any event you will meet likeminded cruisers - and you will meet some of course in Gib, tho not as many as in Las Palmas.

If you go soonish to Las Palmas, you’ll definitely hook up with people if you want to stay in touch. Las Palmas is dead cheap marina - half the price of Gib or less. They won’t let you stay forever cos they gotta chuck some out to make room for the ARCbut you should really see the place before a transat - cos you’ll meet everyone there later anyway in the caribbean and sometime on AtCirc anyway .

For the back end of your AtCirc, i recommend St Martin cos loadsa cheap boatfixing, ace provisioning. Antigua favoured by brits doing a race week but actually rubbish provisioning. I and others will be looking for weather from late April or early May onwards. We have get togethr in Lagoonies for chat about the uphill leg. But we usually each go alone. Oh, but one year year before last i think, six boats set off towards azores together and THEY had an radio/email net - saw some weather ahead and panicked each othr into RETURNING to st martin a week later. Jeez. You should not really need to do this, bit extreme to run away all the way back to st martin...
 
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TCM said it all, my experience for what it's worth is to enjoy Christmas and new year in the Canaries, there are still plenty of yachts there who will wait until early January to leave.

One of the races I did started 3rd of Jan and when I went two up last time it was 10th Jan I think. We left with 4 other boats in ssb contact (we just listened) with different sized boats and route choices the separation is huge within a few days and you are on your own.

Once trades have started or are starting you get proper downwind sailing a quickish crossing as your speed will be up near hull speed on most boats with just headsails, so you'll be in Barbados before the end of Jan, and in time for Trinidad carnival (which was our last goal in terms of dates)

There really is not much of a safety benefit from the ARC in my view. We had an Epirb on the last trip as our call for help option, but next time I'd like ssb comms. Rather than sat phone as you are more likely to hear other peoples distress calls or problems you could help with.

Just make sure the key parts of the boat are sorted, rudder, rig and sails. (assuming the hulls sound first) Have a good trip.
 
The only problem if you plan on getting to the Canaries after the ARC leaves is what to do until then. I'm guessing you've come into gib from the Atlantic side, so you'd have to spend months in the med and you wouldn't have time to get far enough east for it to stop being **** i.e. expensive.

I sailed down from Gib a few weeks ago, making a couple of stops in Morocco along the way. I wish I'd had more time in Morocco, but was on a tight schedule to get to Lanzarote. You could easily spend a few weeks on the Moroccan coast. You could then cruise the canaries for a bit and then head down to the Cape Verde islands before the bulk of the arc fleet get here.

A lot of non arc cruisers do it that way. You get a much shorter crossing to Barbados (<2000 miles) and the Cape Verde islands are apparently very nice.

I've already met a few boats intending to do it this year (me included). The canaries aren't the best cruising ground in the world, but better than the western med by a long way - hardly any non-local boats here at the moment, and only seen one arc burgee so far.
 
>Antigua...actually rubbish provisioning

There is a very good supermarket in Jolly Harbour, it even sells homemade Cumberland Sausages. For provisiong fruit and veg there is an excellent f&v market on the south side of St John opposite the bus station. The bus goes there from a bus stop directly outside the exit to Jolly Harbour marina.

>Cape Verde islands are apparently very nice.

Apparently only one island is safe from crime, check with those who have been there.
 
KellysEye said:
>Antigua...actually rubbish provisioning

There is a very good supermarket in Jolly Harbour, it even sells homemade Cumberland Sausages. For provisiong fruit and veg there is an excellent f&v market on the south side of St John opposite the bus station. The bus goes there from a bus stop directly outside the exit to Jolly Harbour marina.

>Cape Verde islands are apparently very nice.

Apparently only one island is safe from crime, check with those who have been there.
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Yep, Antigua jolly harbour.... but not so jolly these days with no maintenance to speak of and now most bars shut down .... has a supermarket within reach of yotties, the american place. Likewise bit of a hack to fruit and veg, on a bus. St martin has lotsa french supermarkets which carry up to 8000 line items instead of american/uk 3000, and some you can take dinghy almost to the door. So, i stand by the categorisation of antigua provisioning being “rubbish” in comparison to sxm, and i’m not alone...
 
I'll go with what TCM says as well.

Las Palmas is great for Xmas and New Year and there will be loads of people there waiting for a decent window to head west and or waiting for the trades to settle in properly. The anchorage next the marina in LP has good holding and you can park your dink in the marina, use their showers, postal address, water and fuel as needed. Most of the supermarkets deliver to the marina free of charge when you spend about €60+, and they all used to dealing with long distance provisioning.

Morocco is great, friendly & cheap and only 2 days from the Canaries.
 
thanks

thanks for all useful info TCM and others. Just one more thing the crossing south from gib to canaries, the pilots talk about poor vis in november how is it in october... dint understand your langiuage at that point TCM i assume its not a good time

Lee
 
All the advice is to go south from Gib sooner, not later. So i do that. Hence i dunno what the vis is like in Oct or Nov cos i will have been in canaries by then :-) But it’s not pea-soupy like it can be in uk waters with fog. There can sometimes be some sand in the air but nothing at all to concern you viz-wise.

So to hell with poor visibility. And not to worry of course cos you’re miles offshore.

Here’s a fab tip for that route from Gib - aim WEST. Cos if you aim for a logical point say 10-20 miles offshore that NW point of Africa - then for the rest of the trip you will encounter eek big ships tearing up the coast aiming for Gib (and you) asap. So much better go nice long way offshore, 50 miles off that point, then hardly any ships. or a lot fewer.

Here’s another tip - get AIS A or AIS B fitted before you go. This broadcasts your position to the big ships. So the viz is less important.

Tip number 3 concerns the transat AND the trip down to the canaries 600nm to lanza from gib... and that is to have a nice look at the moon phases. You could def go down to canaries during nice full moon, and then lots of nice viz most of the night. If you’re speedy you could tear across transat in 14 days and again choose some time when praps there’ll be moonlight - so you can see the horizon. Not seeing the horizon is more disorienting. Bit spooky for some. Or VERY spooky - especially if i sneak up and shout AARG! at night, eh? Or do that fake squall gag i did while everyone asleep - threw lots of water around the cockpit, half-undid loads of zips, ripped up the t-shirt i was wearing and then put it back on, so when crew came back up they were ooer! and I sed Are you ok? Well that’s the main thing? Didn’t you hear ANYTHING? teehee.

In any event, if you’re in Gib now.. you could investigate around there, or slowly head towards canaries... cos, really, another crusiing ground is sorta 400 miles away in Balearix.

So... much the best I think would be to properly explore down Morocco to Graciosa, Lanzarote. Ask the siuper-positive cap’n sensible if you meet him. Only go to the places he says are incredible. If he says it’s wonderful, it’s well, not too bad. If he says it’s no good, well, i don’t think he ever says that about anywhere...

Incidentally, the “lanzagrotty” jibes completely unfounded - outside the tourists traps lanzarote is very special. Volcanoes and culture and some quite fab restaurants too. Lanza is nice and dry BUT boats can go rusty there more than elsewhere, not much, a bit - lots of er summink in the air from Africa. So praps not stay too long, or have cheap rusty boat.

If you have sailed to Gib from Uk - that’s easily the toughest bit of sailing done for all the way to caribee. it’s downwind now. Choose a reasonable forecast to head down to canaries using passageweather.com and/or others will advise. Choose just about any weather from mid-nov to go south, then west. The ARC briefings befoe departure are ooh very hush hush - but they always suggest that hmm, it’s prolly best to go to 20N 30W. You’ll lurch about of course, the monos always do, but whatever.

1 Get AIS A or B fitted

2 Make contact with cap’nsensible at Hercules sailing. They will be able to point you in right direction for anything round gib.

3 Go to Canaries soonish, and def before October, and stay 50miles offshore africa if you are going straight there.

4 If you didn’t get AIS fitted in Gib, get it sorted by going to Rolnautic chandlery in Las Palmas praps after the ARC leaves, use them to find Mike who lives on boat “Quinn” with NimbleNavigator software and he’ll be there and will set it all up pretty cheap.

5 Don’t be too keen to avoid las palmas completely in sept-Nov ARC run-up -fab atmosphere, loadsa boaties. You can hang out in other marinas if/when no space in Las Palmas - Mogan is cute frinstance and can do haulouts.

6 Don’t worry bout the transat. You can go across without any forecast and effectively this is what the ARC does - they get forecasts but...they still go. I went across with no forecasts and er it was quite a windy crossing. But fine. But all you need a forecast for it to tell you that there’s no late season freight train - the latest ever hurrican was 6th December. Otherwise, whatever the forecast -what’s the difference - you’re still going sailing today! The squalls will turn up and wind can up to double that for 10-20 minutes almost always at night. Add 15knots and a burst of rain. So heh - not a fat lot of point in worrying. The sqalls turn up on radar, bottom left and corner coming from SE.

Finally, nice poncy marinas in the Canaries may well offer a discount! 10% ish, If they don’t - ask! BUT dirt cheap marinas, or marinas which are at an important spot, or council-owned marinas won’t - an Las Palams is all three of these and Marina Bay in Gib is at least two of them... and so the staff have loadsa customers thanks, and you have to get into grovelling mode to stay a few more days, or another day. It’s not so bad in Gib - once you’re in - it’s worse in Las Palmas. They have to clear out 250 boats somehow - sometimes by gently gently - last year i think by telling everyone OUT about 3weeks before the arc. They don’t care if it’s empty - council owned innit - they don’t want a headache.
 
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> although it might seem otherwise, there is no tangible “security” in going with the arc, nor with an “email net”. Not really. If you really needed help, you’d need a big ship or an emergency surgeon right this minute, or a helicopter (cept their range is 300miles, ish) and so on.

I disagree. Many ARC boats have helped other ARC boats including taking crews off. You only really need a ship for a medical emergency where a cruise ship is best because of it's medical facilities.

Also many non ARC boats leave at the same time as the ARC for the security. ARC boats always help others boats and have also taken non ARC crews off.

The daily net is probably the best bit of the ARC after the parties, if anyone has problems there are always other boats to help.
 
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