Sailing the Atlantic, not as difficult or exclusive as you might think

Sailing the Atlantic, how hard can it be?

I am an experienced sailor and my husband is building his experience. Last year we started planning a trip, aiming to cross the Atlantic east to west. We don’t have a boat, nor do we have any intention of buying one. We hoped that with our experience someone else would be good enough to have us on the boat for the journey and perhaps even need us to help them. Whilst searching online for a boat and once on the boat; meeting the other owners, skippers and crews, we discovered that anyone can do this trip. You don’t need experience or a large amount of money and it is not a difficult or strenuous journey. If you fancy a sailing adventure, I would urge you to give it a go.



Sailing into the sunset, (for 3 weeks)

Getting on a Boat

We signed up with two different websites that bring owners and skippers looking for extra crew, together with those of us wishing to crew. The websites we used were Crewbay - http://www.crewbay.com/ and Ocean Crew Link - http://oceancrewlink.com/. Crewbay is free; Ocean Crewlink has just upped its fees from $10pa to $10 per quarter. Other than the price they are both very similar. You type in your sailing experience, what you are looking for and when you are available. It is like online dating for people wishing to sail. You can approach an owner or skipper, or they can approach you. This is all done through the website; then if you are both interested you can get each other’s contact details. If not, you either ignore their request or decline their offer. They are both extremely simple and straightforward to use. I was surprised how many owners and skippers don’t rate experience as important, the ability to get stuck in and get on with others is. A lot of skippers are also willing to teach you how to sail in return for good company and sharing some of the costs of the voyage.



Plenty of time to relax

I will be completely honest; we were quite unlucky in finding a boat. I don’t want to put you off, most boats found crew and vice versa, happily and successfully, in plenty of time and the first time around. We emailed a few owners, met up with one couple and spent some time with another owner. We were unfortunate; the first couple we went sailing with decided not to sail with us. Lovely as they were, we were quite relieved as our first sailing experience with them involved running aground, (twice) and hitting a mooring buoy. We met the second owner in Turkey where we discovered his boat was not ready to sail and was in actual fact not safe for an Atlantic crossing. This left us, at the beginning of September, with very little time to find a boat if we were to sail with the ARC*, in November. Luckily I found an owner that I had had previous email contact with who still needed crew; not only that, he needed an experienced crew member for the Atlantic crossing. We decided to go for it. We bought flights to Alicante and met the owners. Within 24 hours we had to decide if we were happy to spend the next 3 months sailing with them, on their boat and cross the Atlantic with them. After 24 hours the balance of our (already booked), flights home from St Lucia needed to be paid and our fee to join the ARC would increase significantly. We said yes and they were happy to have us.

Andy celebrating his birthday on-board

The ARC* - https://www.worldcruising.com/arc/event.aspx

The ARC or Atlantic Rally for Cruisers is where a number of boats wanting to cross the Atlantic, to enjoy the Caribbean for the winter season, get together to cross the ocean as a group. This year there were over 200 boats all heading out together. The rally leaves Gran Canaria at the end of November to coincide with the end of the hurricane season. A lot of owners are first timers, gaining confidence from the support given by the ARC and fellow ocean crossers; however, others will have crossed with the ARC many times before. The ARC charges a small fee but in return provide daily weather forecasts and positions of all boats in the rally, throughout the crossing. They also provide all boats with a ‘yellow brick’, a GPS device that provides the position of the boat, via satellite, at 4 hourly intervals, for the duration of the rally. This can be seen by the ARC organisers, other boats and anyone at home with internet access. 

They also insist on each boat passing a safety check, ensuring enough safety equipment is carried to keep everyone fairly safe on the passage. There are also numerous, worthwhile seminars to listen to and of course the famous sundowners on most nights, whilst preparing the boats in Gran Canaria. So our confidence was boosted hugely by sailing with the ARC. We knew the boat was up to scratch and if we got into trouble, it would be noticed and there would be boats nearby to come to our aid if necessary. The ARC also provided the opportunity to meet other skippers, owners and crews, to share worries and stresses but most importantly to have fun with and to hook up with for onward voyages such as cruising the Caribbean or continuing with the World ARC. I would highly recommend aiming to complete your first Atlantic crossing with the ARC.

In addition to partying there was a boat to prepare. There would be 6 of us aboard for our crossing. Between us we came up with menus for 3 weeks and then made a shopping list for all of the food and drink required. We expected the crossing to take between 18 days and 4 weeks and so we made sure that we had enough food to last us at least 4 weeks. We also bought some drugs over the counter in Gran Canaria that we thought would be useful to have onboard. These included anti-biotics and adrenaline. We looked at the spare parts that the boat would be carrying. If the engines, generators, water makers, pumps, rigging and sails, etc..  fail mid-Atlantic, someone needs to know how to fix them.  If you know a little about electrics or engines, you will be a very useful person to have aboard a yacht on a long passage but hopefully your skipper will have this knowledge.

The Crossing

Leaving the comfort of the marina, after 3 weeks, into a Force 6 was a bit of a shock. However, I liked the thought that after 5 or 6 days the wind, and then the seas, would quieten down and the passage would get easier. Conditions for the Atlantic, for a week in advance can be found on websites such as Passage Weather - http://passageweather.com/ and Magic Seaweed - http://magicseaweed.com/UK-Ireland-MSW-Surf-Charts/1/.

Wet & windy start

Andy & I took seasickness pills just to be sure and were pleased to discover they worked a treat, particularly when spending time below cooking. After a few days they were no longer needed. It takes a few days to get used to life onboard with no means of escape. During the first days I spent a lot of time sleeping in-between my watches. The 6 of us onboard covered 24 hours with a 2 hour watch each during the night and two, 1 hour watches during the day. During a watch you will be expected to steer the boat if it doesn’t have an autohelm, or if it is not being used; and to watch, to look out for other vessels. Depending on the skipper and your skills; you may be required to cook, clean and maintain the boat on the passage. To be honest, all of these tasks help to pass the time.

Sailing from Europe at this time of year almost guarantees winds of between 15 and 25 knots, (17-30 mph), from behind you. This is quite a comfortable wind speed and generates a slight sea which again is comfortable and surprisingly small for such a large ocean. When you take the boat speed of between 5 and 10 knots, (6-12 mph) travelling in the same direction as the wind, into account, the apparent wind, or what the wind really feels like, drops to a very comfortable level. The first few days may be a little different as you head south or south west to find these easterly trade winds, but generally the wind will be somewhere behind you and this is the most comfortable direction to sail. Tradition states that you head south until the butter melts and then turn west, this way you will be at the right latitude for the consistent easterly winds to blow you all the way to the Caribbean. This latitude is about 20 degrees north, (and is more difficult to find now boats have fridges).

Still heading towards the sunset

The boat will sail fairly flat and with the wind constantly coming from the same direction there isn’t a lot of work to do with the sails. However, this crossing is known to have squalls where a rainstorm will approach, quite slowly, and the winds can pick up to more than 35 knots. They are not too much of a worry as long as you are looking behind you and see them coming. This will give you time to reef the sails, ie; make them smaller before the wind hits and to get your waterproofs on. If you have prepared in good time then the squall will bringing nothing more than a chance to have a freshwater rinse and give the boat a good clean. Once the front edge of the storm has passed, the wind eases and you can think about putting out more sail again, to maintain the speed in the lighter winds that will soon follow.



AIS showing our boat amongst the others soon after the start

When not watching out for squalls it is a good idea to check all of the rigging on the boat, both the fixed parts, generally metal, and running parts, generally ropes. With 3 weeks or more of constant sailing the boat takes a lot of strain and this can cause wear and tear. Chafe is common and so it is a good idea to move ropes around so that the same part is not on a pressure point all of the time. Water makers will be run, if present; bread will be made and the engines or generators will probably go on for a short time each day to recharge the batteries that are being used for radios, lights, GPS etc..

There is plenty of free time to fill and taking lots of books or more commonly now, e-books is a must. Mini solar packs are ideal for charging tablets and phones and a cigarette lighter style charger is also really useful on a boat as items can then be charged from the boats batteries. Wildlife watching and identification is interesting but unfortunately you tend not to see too much of it. Having an identification chart makes spotting wildlife more worthwhile as you can have a go at identifying what species you have seen; bear in mind you probably won’t get online on the crossing. We had maybe 5 or 6 sightings of whales; the best being a Minke whale which stayed and played right next to the boat for an hour or so. Dolphins; I’m still not sure of what variety, but they were small, frequented the boat. They would notice it from a great way away and come bounding towards us from hundreds of metres out, in great excitement. They would play at the bows, swimming with little effort but managing to go so much faster than we could. Then, in a flash, they were gone. Flying fish were the most numerous species that we saw. Often we would clear 3 or 4 of them off the deck in the morning from where they had crash landed. We would also see them alive. They can fly for hundreds of metres, but they also crash into an unannounced swell surprisingly often. Other fish species were seen, but only on the end of a line, to be eaten. These were generally from the tuna family and were pretty tasty.

Land Ahoy!

Birdlife was less prolific but still interesting. There were Tropic Birds seen throughout the crossing, Shearwaters gliding gracefully, just above the waves and tiny petrels which looked like they should not be out mid-Atlantic. As we got closer to the Caribbean Frigate Birds appeared, noticeable by their bent wing shape. There was no real clue that we were approaching land until we could actually see it. These days with all of the modern gadgets we could see where we were in relation to land on the electronic chart plotter, there was no need to take the position and plot it on a paper chart. (We did though, in case we lost the electrics and for a souvenir). We could also see boats within 15 miles or so of us, on the screen through the AIS, (Automatic Identification System); or for real if they were less than 6 miles away. With the AIS we could find out the speed of the other boats, their destination and often where they had come from. There were probably as many days when we could see boats near us, as there were with no boats in our vicinity. It was reassuring to know that cargo boats do cross mid-Atlantic, and do so quite fast. They would be the boats that would have come to our rescue, had we needed it. 

In case you are wondering, the boat keeps sailing during the night. Often skippers will put smaller, easier to handle sails up at night as the last thing a sleepy crew wants is the call for ‘all hands on deck’, in the middle of a squall, at night, to get the spinnaker down. Climbing out of your warm bunk, into the dark, wet, windy conditions is not much fun. On the other hand, being on-watch at night can be wonderful. Being the only one awake, guiding the boat, trying to catch up with the setting sun and then watching the stars pop out one by one as the skies darken; waiting for the moon to rise and give a light glow to the boat. The stars are spectacular, but no more so than from the wilderness of Scotland. The shooting stars are easier to spot as you will probably be staring up at the sky, using the stars using to help you steer. If you are lucky you might get to see phosphorescence as the boat disturbs the tiny organisms in the sea, leaving a beautiful trail of multi-colours behind you.

Arriving in St Lucia we had to change sails and sail upwind to sail across the finish line of the ARC. This was something we hadn’t done in a while. Then all the sails were dropped and lines and fenders were prepared so we could tie alongside the pontoon in the marina. Stepping ashore felt remarkably normal. We weren’t tired or hungry or particularly wobbly. We had eaten and slept well and the conditions had been good. However, a traditional rum punch on arrival, (courtesy of the ARC), helps you acclimatise to the Caribbean. So if you join a well prepared boat, you too should enjoy a relaxed, comfortable and trouble-free crossing, happy in the knowledge that even your Mum at home can see where you are every 4 hours, ready to call the emergency services, to divert that cargo ship, should the need arise.



We've made it!

Doing it Yourself

So crossing the Atlantic is straightforward. To ensure you get the most out of your trip I would suggest hooking up with the boat and other crew as early as possible. Most boats leave the UK, Scandinavia or more probably the Med, in the summer. If you can join them for an early leg of their trip towards the Canary Islands, you will get to know the boat and the people. It will also give you time to look for a different boat if it doesn’t work out. You should at least have your own cabin so you do have your own personal space to retreat to when needed. Make sure you know exactly what is expected of you beforehand and how much you are expected to pay. Paying a fixed fee beforehand can be advantageous as you know exactly how much you will be paying and you don’t have to worry about money on the crossing, or worse as you all prepare to go your separate ways on arrival in the Caribbean.

Go for it, don’t worry (all that thinking time should be put to positive use) and have fun. Sailing across the Atlantic is a fantastic but achievable endeavour; not just for sailors or the wealthy.