Boat prep for atlantic crossing ?

Jobs_a_ good_ un

Jobs_a_ good_ un

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home bristol boat where ever we end up
www.beneteau393.co.uk
Got my bene 393 on the market but if it doesnt sell by sept I fancy sailing it from Cardiff to the Azores
Then moving it to the carib end nov/start dec
What prep will i need to do is there a list had a look at the arc site but couldnt see anything
Had a few offers for crew so should be ok
How many people is the optimum no 4 i thought
I know ssb and the abilty to receive email is prefrable
Can anyone help ?
Btw with the current finacial market this is a serious request
Thanks
 
On the ARC website in the entry details is a list of minimum safety requirements, these are the bare minimum.

SSB and email are nice to have, I would only get the bare minimum as you could spend a fortune. You need to get proper storm sails, probably won't need them but good to have, EPIRB and a top quality lifteraft, depending upon what sort of comfort levels you want you could survive on just your tanked water + emergency bottled surplies. Failing that a watermaker is a fairly popular addition to ARC boats. How many showers and washing do you want to do.

Electricity is another factor you will need to work out, fridge, running lights, nav equipment, radar etc will all require a large battery bank and the requirements to refill them. This will either require reqular use of the engine without a smart alternator charging system, you could suplement this with a towed generator, it will slow you down a 0.5-1knot but more reliable then wind genny down wind. Or just get a AC genny installed £££.

When I did the ARC first there were 4 of us on a Oyster 46, the owners wife did no watches or real sail stuff so 3 is an easily do able. A question to answer is do you want to hand steer across or us a auto pilot or wind vane thing? I have also gone west to east on a Oyster 70 this was virtually push button sailing.

Another two transaltantics I have done were on Volvo 60's lots of steering to keep eveyone busy.

Bene 393 should be reasonable good fun if the wind is ok. Just enjoy it, getting to the start line is the hard part!
 
Thanks for your reply
I was as you suggested gonna get the most basic ssb and email receiver
any idea of cost had a quick look reckon on £ 3 k
The boat already has a inner forstay removable and storm jib
re power I read that a lot of the arc boats run there engines for 4-5 hrs per day at about 2 L per hour of fuel
Refill in azores
The boat has a 4-6 man valise plastimo off shore liferaft
Will I need a better one or could I rent one ?

Regards

Mark
 
IMHO you may wish to think about deciding what you are going to do a bit earlier than 1st September, I suspect that you would you will need to decide by June if you were going or not to have a serious chance of getting the boat ready and down to Canaries by Nov.

Do a search on the livaboardlink site for loads o discusions about erything from Hydrovanes to Hypnotherapy for ocean crosings,
 
You probably won't hit the Azores on the way down, maybe on the way back.

I used an ICOM 706 and an ATU to tune the ariel along with getting the gound plate sorted and the backstay inulated to act as an ariel that cost about £2k. Had to replace the riggingfor insurance purpose as over 5 years old, that was about £4k, Hydrovane Steering was £4k, sat phone was £500, towed generator for leccy was £1k solar panels £1k, ocean liferaft £1k, new big alternator and charging system£500, new runnig rigging £500, ARC entry fees £1k.

That is what I remember from the top of my head, in addition to thiese items there were probably a few bits that I have chosen to forget that were complete waste of money
 
Your boat looks well kitted out already.

All you would seem to need IMHO would be a furuno 1623 radar, airx wind gen or similar. an iridium phone with data package and an Icom 718 ssb radio (opened up for marine band) plus AH4 tuner unit. For simplicity use the guard wires as a counterpoise earth and a length of 1.5 mm cable from the stern rail to masthead as an antenna. use cord at each end to isolate it from the boat.

I would think your liferaft, charging system, autopilot etc will be fine. You could easily do it on your own so choice is yours of crew numbers. two would seem plenty to me.

There are lots of non arc boats crossing at this time so easy to keep in touch with others if needed
 
I agree, skip the SSB, get a satphone and with the money you save a Hydrovane....
 
Just to clarify the plan was to leave uk from Padstow and sail directly to the azores in sept then await the trades in dec
Not to be part of the arc

I did think save a few quid with the sat phone option you can even rent them as I doubt i would be coming back

Then cruise the warmer climes for a few years
dont really want a hydrovane prefer the battery charge option via the engines and use the auto pilot.

How vital is radar in all my cruising years ive used it once in a situation where I needed it
 
Don't dismiss the hydrovane too quickly. I haven't done a crossing myself but, after safety first, power management has got to be pretty high up the priority list.

Autohelms draw a lot of current if they are having to make frequent adjustments. Running the engine recharges the batteries quickly, but doesn't do the engine much good if you do it often.

Then there is water management - if you have a watermaker, that will need power too.

A wind genny and a solar panel would be worthy of consideration.

Back to the Autohelm, make sure you have plenty of spares. Ours broke down off the west coast of France, and hand steering for several days becomes quite labourious.
 
I would go for a Hydrovane over an autopilot any day (OK, I am a wee bit biased, cos we have a Hydrovane) - and they also have the advantage of being a completely separate emergency rudder.

I crossed the pond in the first ARC, on a boat with an autopilot (and no wind vane) - we had to run the engine every 6 hours to feed juice to this machine for the first week until Mr. Auto expired..... and then the three of us on board were hand steering for the next 18 days (we had a slow passage).

AIS might possibly be a 'better' option instead of radar.

And you could consider doing a ham radio course, getting a license, and then buying a ham radio and getting a winlink email address.
Three crew would be plenty IMHO, unless your insurance company decides that they want four for 'safety' reasons.

And make sure that you have an extra tender - it can just be a wee 'oars only' 2 m. inflatable - but then you have a back-up in case anything happens to your main tender, or crew want to go in different directions (as in the Caribbean especially, you will be at anchor most of the time, rather than in marinas).
 
You won't get the trades from the Azores in December, they are 1,000 miles or more further South. You don't want to be in the Azores in December at all - the weather can be decidedly hairy.

I would plan to leave the Azores for Madeira or the Canaries by end Sept / mid Oct at the latest.

- W
 
Really just a sound boat

Rigging takes a lot of wear on a crossing so standing rigging should be in good shape, checking all fittings in detail. Running rigging also gets a lot of extra wear so check all blocks run smooth to reduce chafing.

Through hulls all in good order.

SSB receiver and laptop for weatherfaxes and listening into the nets for safety info.

Tank fittings, you don't want them movving. Have a look at anything that might be tempted to move repeatedly.

Towed gen is a good idea, in practioce in the trades sailing deep down wind you are over powered a lot of the time so it doesn't reduce your speed, we had an average of 5.9knots in a Bav 390 surplus of power all the way with no engine needed.

Good sails, preferably some smaller ones just in case.

rudder bearings nice and snug, good auto helm or self steering, and a good plan for a jury rudder and the bits to make it. If you have cable steering look very closely at the pulley wheels/bearings/supports and cable condition. I had some break on a Sweden just out from the Canaries.

An EPIRB and liferaft with a very well sorted grab bag and lots of water at hand.

and off you go, 4 people or less is ideal on that size of boat.

Radar never needed one
SSB transceiver nice luxury
 
Nothing to add to the wise advice already give. I wrote an article on preparing a boat for the Caribbean which may be of interest. PM me with an email address if you want a copy.
 
I don't think you can avoid the Canaries? You might be able to just about get away from Madeira and find some trades but I would go to the Canaries myself.
As long as you avoid Las Palmas (ARC start) there are loads of marina's in the Canaries where you can provision and re-fuel.
We had both SSB and Sat phone on our trip and used the sat phone nearly all the way due to poor radio propagation. Iridium with data kit were around £850 last year and you can do a pay as you go contract for $31USD/month (12 month min) plus $1.35/min. You can find second hand on Ebay quite often at a much better price. Downloading emails & weather normally takes around 4 minutes or so at 19.2kb/s.
 
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