Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 6 [Day 54]

June 18, 2018 and we sailed 78 nautical miles noon to noon in the right direction.

The winds finally calmed down, but are still blowing out of the North. This meant that we had the option of sailing on a close reach into the leftover seas, or sail on a beam reach going either East or West. West is back towards the US, and East takes us to Portugal!

The decision was simple, continue on the same tack in the same direction and on the same course as yesterday. We are fine going East at this point in time, but we do need to keep in mind that we still need to go further North to avoid sailing into the calm region between the Azores and Portugal, as well as getting swept South by the current that runs further to the East.

Like I said before, we are still far out so we are just trying to make it in either North or East directions. The winds will always shift at some point so we will never be going in one direction for very long.

Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 5 [Day 53]

Our goal is to sail North and East. We usually can’t have both so we choose the point of sail that has us moving in one of those two directions.

A low moved in and pushed out the high, causing the winds to rotate in the opposite direction. Now, the Portuguese Trade Winds are blowing from the South and the winds around the Azores are blowing from the North.

Instead of beating into the North winds, we simply tacked over and sailed East! 68 nautical miles later (noon to noon) and we were 68 miles closer to Portugal.

Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 4 [Day 52]

June 16, 2019, a storm started brewing over the Azores and started taking us a bit West in our Northern course. Yes, this is technically away from our destination, but it was a much more comfortable point of sail!

We reefed down heavily and sailed only 74 nautical miles made good that day from noon to noon. We aren’t too worried about the deviation from our course because we are still so far away that it doesn’t really affect our course overall. If we were racing, we would not be so lackadaisical about our heading, but we are not racing, we are cruising! We just sailed along on a beam reach and as the wind shifted we just deviated from our ideal course without concern or worry.

Transatlantic: Azores to Portugal: Day 3 [Day 51]

Our third day out from the Azores was incredible. Winds picked up and we started moving rather quickly! We covered 115 nautical miles made good noon to noon.

While the winds picked up, the seas did as well, thankfully it was downwind as we sailed North.

The route we planned was devised by a combination of a few sources of information. Since the standard route is to sail straight to Lisbon and use the motor to compensate for poor navigational judgement, we decided to look elsewhere for inspiration. I consulted the Pilot Charts which show the average wind conditions in this area at this time of year. The plan was to sail North to around 47*N, then sail over to the edge of the Iberian Peninsula, then come down with the Portuguese Trade Winds.

The second source I used was historical trade routes voyaged by square riggers who could not sail upwind.

In the wind map, you can see the center of the high pressure settling in again, providing no wind between the Azores and Portugal, followed by the prevailing Northerly winds coming down the Portuguese Coast as well as the Southerly prevailing winds near the Azores.

While it is nice to retrospectively look back at the wind maps for this area on those dates, sadly, I did not have access to this information while we were actually making the voyage. My weather information came from the cloud formations above us in the sky. This is how we make our passages, we wait for the weather to be safe to leave where we are and sail as far away from shore as we can, then we deal with the weather that comes at us preparing for the coming wind based on what the clouds tell us.

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