Atlantic west to east shallow spot

[Heckler]

Watching Sailing Bora Bora on Youtube the other night, they were heading from New York to the Azores, they were concerned about a shallow spot to the west of the Azores where someone had allegedly seen a sunk yacht on the bottom!
Does anyone know about this?

 

[Minchsailor]

I should think it is the N-S Atlantic ridge - a major fault which will (one day, far, far in the future) lead to a new landmass between Africa and and the Americas. It's quite well known:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_Ridge

 

[[3889]]

The Mid Atlantic ridge is a divergent plate boundary, not a fault. It has a least depth, excluding Iceland and the Azores which are emergent portions elevated by localised mantle plumes, well in excess of 1000m. It will not evolve into a landmass as the cooling plates either side of the boundary will sink into the mantle as their density increases and they become overlain with sediment. The ridge will eventually be subducted beneath either the American or Carribean plates or the Eurasian / African plates, at which point the N and/or S Atlantic will cease to increase in size.

To the OP, what is shallow and what is west? There are various seamounts on the western flank of the ridge about 100NM W of Flores. Some have <200m depth which might generate breaking waves in grim conditions. There's certainly no risk of hitting the bottom more than 5 miles from the Azores coast.

 

[capnsensible]

Watching Sailing Bora Bora on Youtube the other night, they were heading from New York to the Azores, they were concerned about a shallow spot to the west of the Azores where someone had allegedly seen a sunk yacht on the bottom!
Does anyone know about this?

Hiya. There are a few seamounts around all the volcanic island chains where some cones didn't quite make it to the top. I don't have a chart to hand but from memory there is something to the west of the island Horta is on that needs a bit of an offing in bouncy weather. Perhaps it's that?

 

[AndrewB]

From memory, there is nothing at any distance offshore that might cause a yacht problems. Indeed, the waters around the Azores are generally exceptionally deep, though with a few seamounts. One to the east, about half way between Terceira and Sao Miguel, rises to about 20 meters.

Best guess as to what they are talking about is Baixo de Serreta, a 5 meter patch 3 miles west of Terciera, which is considered a danger to navigation in bad weather. There are also some shallow spots in the channel between Faial and Pico which cause turbulence. Some of the islands, notably Flores and Corvo, are very rocky close inshore and need care to enter anchorages.

This site: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...-vents-discovered-azores-science-environment/ might be of interest regarding relative shallow (500 m) hydrothermal vents recently found in the region.

 

[newtothis]

Best guess as to what they are talking about is Baixo de Serreta, a 5 meter patch 3 miles west of Terciera, which is considered a danger to navigation in bad weather. There are also some shallow spots in the channel between Faial and Pico which cause turbulence. Some of the islands, notably Flores and Corvo, are very rocky close inshore and need care to enter anchorages.

The Bora Bora video segment refers to a pilotage note that somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic there is an area of v shallow water with reports of a sunk yacht being visible. It looked about half way from US-Azores.
Not sure what the source of the info was, but both of them were keen to keep well clear of the area. Pretty sure I would too if I was in that neck of the woods and had read a warning like that.

Maybe contact them via YouTube; they do reply to questions posted there, but I have no idea if they're on this forum.

 

[Kukri]

The Bora Bora video segment refers to a pilotage note that somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic there is an area of v shallow water with reports of a sunk yacht being visible. It looked about half way from US-Azores.
Not sure what the source of the info was, but both of them were keen to keep well clear of the area. Pretty sure I would too if I was in that neck of the woods and had read a warning like that.

Maybe contact them via YouTube; they do reply to questions posted there, but I have no idea if they're on this forum.

As fuel for the spaceship "Heart of Gold", this might be even better than the Bermuda Triangle.

 

[tom_sail]

Having worked at sea for many years I can be pretty sure that there is a “Obstruction” approx 400 nm N of Bermuda. I remember correcting our old paper charts with this new feature. It also appears on our electronic Vector and Raster charts. I’m currently away from any means of getting an exact position of this area. I seem to remember getting told a few ships hit “something underwater” in this position. It was never surveyed and just to be cautious the admiralty slapped an “obstruction” symbol vaguely in the area.

 

[GHA]

On the video they said Corner seamount >
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Rise_Seamounts

Even if not too shallow there's a lot of tales from boats getting hammered over seamounts so probably a wise call to avoid.

And a few moments on google comes up with the sailing routes page >>
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...v=onepage&q=2003 wreck yacht 35 22.25&f=false

 

[langstonelayabout]

As fuel for the spaceship "Heart of Gold", this might be even better than the Bermuda Triangle.

Sounds rather improbable to me.

Does it have a black light that lights up black to tell you that it’s on?

 

[[3889]]

The Corner Seamounts are >800m deep. As waves begin to transition from deep water to shallow water behaviour at depths of 20 x wave height only 40m waves would be affected by this bathymetry. Past the point of worrying about shallow bits, I think.

 

[Heckler]

The Bora Bora video segment refers to a pilotage note that somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic there is an area of v shallow water with reports of a sunk yacht being visible. It looked about half way from US-Azores.
Not sure what the source of the info was, but both of them were keen to keep well clear of the area. Pretty sure I would too if I was in that neck of the woods and had read a warning like that.

Maybe contact them via YouTube; they do reply to questions posted there, but I have no idea if they're on this forum.

I googled it eventually and there is ref to it in the latest jimmy cornells routes, it wasnt in mine because it is getting on a bit.

Oops Paddy beat me to it.