When we left the Azores, our destination was Northern Portugal. The straight line distance was roughly 800 nautical miles and most people motor straight to there in about 6 to 7 days.
Our route might look very “Out of the way” since we made this giant arc heading very North before turning East and making our way to the coast of Portugal. My inspiration for this course was from something I found in an old illustration. It showed the Portuguese trade routes between the Azores and Portugal. The ships would leave the Azores and sail far North, then come down onto the coast without issue.
These ships were condemned to only sail down wind with their square sails and non-functional keel! Therefore, if this is the downwind route that was used reliably for trade in the age before motors, then this was going to be our route!
Looking at a typical day in the Atlantic Ocean, you can see the winds rising up from the Azores, until it gets far North and begins to rotate and come back down onto the Portuguese Coast. Along the coast, the winds pick up speed and there is a consistent current as well which makes Northward sailing unpleasant and unproductive!
Our route was a bit longer at around 1,800 nautical miles! We certainly went up and out of the way, but at no time had to beat into the weather! The whole journey was a downwind sail which made the rough conditions we encountered less awful.
I won’t say that sailing downwind in a storm conditions is pleasant, as there is nothing pleasant about heavy weather. Tactics are employed to make the horrible situation “less” horrible. That being said, we at no time feared for our lives or anything like that. Instead, Maddie dealt with sea sickness and we ate or slept our way across the ocean.
The whole journey was rather long. We departed June 13, 2019 and arrived July 1, 2019. This means we spent 19 days on the water and all but a few of those days were spent sailing in nice conditions!
The route was very simple. When we left Terceira, we sailed North until we reached 47*N. That that point, the winds were consistently blowing out of the West and we were able to sail East towards the Iberian Peninsula. From there, we made our way East until we were close to the NW point of the Iberian Peninsula where we then turned and made our sail South towards our destination. When we turned South, we were now in the Portuguese Trade Winds which blow rather strongly and consistently out of the North. There is also a reliable current here which rips along out of the North as well.
This means that if you are sailing South, you will have a spirited down wind and down current passage. If you are trying to make a straight shot and sail directly from the Azores, you will now have a horrible time.
Countless cruisers recounted to us about how they had the most peaceful (motor) sail from the Azores to Portugal, but then the last two days, the winds would become really strong and they would have to beat into these horrible seas until they made it to Lisbon, or Porto, or wherever they were going.
Our lack of motor motivated me to seek out an alternative route to get there without having to beat into the weather at the very end of the journey.
In my studies is when I learned about what made all of these tales the same. The last two days they had a head wind that was really strong. This headwind comes from the fact that the current is taking them South and in order to fight the current, the yacht needs to turn slightly North so that the yacht can then crab its way across the sea.
When the yacht turns slightly North to counteract the current, the beam winds they are expecting to have in the Portuguese Trades become winds just ahead of the beam and that is when they start beating.
The alternative is to originate your ventures in the Portuguese Trades so far North that the wind and current are merely helping you reach your destination and that is exactly what we did.
