{"id":150649,"date":"2024-02-27T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=150649"},"modified":"2024-02-27T06:00:49","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T06:00:49","slug":"sailing-from-annapolis-to-iceland-on-the-viking-routes-of-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/sailing-across-atlantic\/sailing-from-annapolis-to-iceland-on-the-viking-routes-of-old-150649","title":{"rendered":"Sailing from Annapolis to Iceland on the viking routes of old"},"content":"An Atlantic crossing or Atlantic circuit has often been seen as a year-long adventure, crossing the ocean<\/a> in late November or December to the Caribbean<\/a>, with a return to Europe starting in May.\r\n\r\nThere are good reasons for this timetable, the overriding one being the hurricane season. This runs from the beginning of June through to the end of November. Hurricanes can happen outside of the \u2018official season\u2019, but they are rare \u2013 although the last few years have all seen named storms in May.\r\n\r\nBy departing towards the end of November, with the bulk of the crossing in December, we maximise the Caribbean season, often coming back to Europe after Antigua Race Week in May.\r\n\r\nThe Caribbean winter season now begins with two major events starting in January; the RORC Transatlantic Race, and for this year an additional January departure for the ARC. Both are scheduled to depart early January from Lanzarote and Gran Canaria respectively.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_134945\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Not much to split them? Using reanalysis data and routing software the routes in green show late November departures and those in red January[\/caption]\r\n\r\nInterestingly, for the actual crossing from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean, statistics show that the wind tends to become stronger as we get into January and February \u2013 so there may be some truth in the Christmas trade winds that we hear about starting to blow around Christmas and lasting well into the following months.\r\n\r\nArticle continues below...<\/em>\r\n\r\n
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\r\n\r\nWhen departing the Canaries the prevailing wind direction is from north through to east-north-east. These are the trade winds found on the eastern side of the semi-permanent high pressure which we know as the Azores high. The wind blows from this direction for 55-65% of the time with little variation from November to March. However, averages do not tell us everything and we do get a number of days when the Canaries are affected by low pressure passing close to the north.\r\n

Winter winds<\/h2>\r\nThis is important for a pleasurable passage; few people enjoy headwinds when supposedly on a downwind passage or race. Near the Canaries the wind is between south and west for around 10% of the time in December and higher at 14% in January. That is not a huge difference and the variability between years makes it hard to make firm predictions.\r\n\r\nThere are lots of statistics from different sources and although they roughly agree the older pilot charts and routing charts tend to indicate a higher incidence of trade winds, while winds derived from newer satellite observations show more variability.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_133423\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Harry Scott leaving the Canaries.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWhen looking at reanalysis data we see an even greater variation in the wind patterns, and this is consistent with a greater variability in the weather which we expect with climate change.\r\n\r\nAdditionally, if the wind becomes south-westerly, the average strength tends to increase from November and December through to February. This is an indication of deeper winter depressions passing closer to, and affecting the Canary Islands.\r\n\r\nOn the way across there will remain a small chance of south-westerly winds which decreases the further south and west you get; mid-Atlantic adverse and light winds are generally linked to the tail of cold fronts splitting the Azores high or more rarely areas of low pressure.\r\n

When to go?<\/h2>\r\nTo compare conditions between months, I ran some weather routing for a late November and an early January departure. This was from the Canaries to St Lucia using 11 years of reanalysis data from 2010-2020 departing in late November and early January. By using the polars from a cruiser-racer production boat some of the results were quite surprising.\r\n\r\nThe earlier departures gave a greater range of routes with the January departures slightly closer to the direct route and to the south; this reflects the expected stronger winds (from historical data) with shorter courses following closer to the great circle route.\r\n\r\nHowever, the main surprise came with the timings as the late November departures were on average 10 hours faster than the January ones. This didn\u2019t make a great deal of sense because historical data, as well as anecdotal evidence from the Caribbean, suggested the later crossings should have stronger and steadier trade winds.\r\n\r\nBut by looking at the routes and weather patterns a little more closely, I found that on four of the January routes there was low pressure in the central and eastern Atlantic that was further south than usually expected and impacted on the first part of the route. This gave moderate to strong headwinds and a slow start to the passage which was followed by light winds until the trade winds filled in after the lows had moved away.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_134946\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" An unusually large low in January, completely disturbing the trade winds[\/caption]\r\n\r\nSo a January passage on a \u2018good\u2019 year should, given long term average conditions, be faster with stronger wind particularly on the latter part of the passage. But, rather significantly, there is a greater chance of low pressure affecting the Canary Islands and delaying the start if cruising, or giving a period of beating\r\nif racing.\r\n\r\nPlanning our sailing is rarely as simple as deciding a date on which we are leaving. Something that should be taken equally seriously is the weather expected on the passage to the Canary Islands. This is more important when heading south from the UK and north-west Europe, although it must also be taken into consideration when departing from the Mediterranean.\r\n

Head south early<\/h2>\r\nThe usual advice is to get south as early as possible, as an easier passage will be had in September rather than leaving it until November or December. If crossing the Bay of Biscay, once into September the likelihood of gales increases, as does the probability of south-westerly winds.\r\n\r\nIn September pilot charts indicate that gales in northern Biscay are likely 3% of the time, which increases to 7% in October and 9% in November. We also get a significant increase in south-westerly winds; this reflects the passing of lows to the north-west which tend to pass further south during autumn and winter.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_127615\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"sailing-autopilots-ARC-2016-credit-TimBisMedia\" Classic tradewind setup for an Atlantic crossing. Photo: TimBisMedia[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThere are some breaks in the weather as cold fronts rattle through veering the wind to the north-west and occasionally to the north. As the season progresses so does the likelihood that the Portuguese trade winds will fail, giving a beat south down the Portuguese coast only picking up the trade winds south of the latitude of Gibraltar.\r\n\r\nAs we\u2019ve seen from the start of races from France in the autumn, there can be a high attrition rate before the yachts have even left Biscay. It\u2019s not that you can\u2019t cross Biscay in any month, but the later it\u2019s left the longer the time between weather windows and the shorter the weather windows tend to be. This can lead us to make choices based on necessity rather than prudence.\r\n\r\nOnce south of Portugal we should get into the start of the trade winds \u2013 but we still need to watch for lows further south than normal.\r\n\r\nWhile most yachts arrive in the Canary Islands having had a good sail, there are always a number that get caught out and end up beating for some of the way \u2013 usually yachts that have left it late and are on a tight schedule. This is also true for yachts leaving the Mediterranean and it\u2019s not uncommon for yachts to have to wait in Gibraltar for strong westerly winds to diminish.\r\n\r\nWhether intending to start your transatlantic in November or wait until later, I prefer to see boats south of Biscay well before the end of September and would not be far behind if leaving from the Med.\r\n\r\nA crossing in January will generally have stronger winds, but there\u2019s a greater chance of headwinds particularly when getting away from the Canary Islands. Whenever you decide to cross, getting to the Canaries early is important and the later you leave it to get south the more chance there is of having to wait for a weather window.\r\n\r\n
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Heavy, heavy fog blanketed the boat. We had a rotating watch standing on the bow looking for growlers. Everything, and everyone, was soaked. Falken was charging fast through the horizon-less sea. We would slow down the second we saw our first radar target. Ten knots among icebergs was not my idea of excitement. In the words of Led Zeppelin: We come from the land of the ice and snow From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. Will drive our ships to new lands To fight the horde, sing and cry Valhalla, I am coming. We downshifted. With three reefs in the mainsail and a scrap of staysail we maintained our windward position and picked our way through the 60-mile ice belt that guarded the west coast of Greenland on the approach to Nanortalik in a 25-knot north-westerly with zero visibility, avoiding the big bergs with the radar and the smaller ones visually. At least it was daylight out. I really wish I\u2019d had the wherewithal to blast Led Zeppelin\u2019s Immigrant Song that morning of our Greenland landfall \u2013 it was a pretty metal arrival \u2013 but alas, in the moment I was too focused on not sinking the boat. Now though, reflecting on what was one of the prouder moments of my sailing career, I can\u2019t get the song out of my head. It\u2019s become my soundtrack to the Viking route. Ah-AAAHHHH, ah! Ah-AAAHHHH, ah! Voyage from Vinland The historic Viking route traverses the far North Atlantic between Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland. Technically we were doing it in reverse. Erik the Red, bound for mythical \u2018Vinland\u2019 would have come from the east, hop-scotching his way in open longboats from Iceland towards North America. Where \u2018Vinland\u2019 really was remains a mystery to this day but there\u2019s no doubt that Vikings established communities at least as far south as Newfoundland. While the route had been lodged in my consciousness for as long as I\u2019ve been reading about sailing (check out Vinland Voyage for a wonderful account of making the trip in a wooden yacht in the 1960s), it never really occurred to me that I\u2019d sail it. Before my wife, Mia, and I started 59\u00b0 North, I\u2019d had Svalbard as my own personal Thule, with ideas of sailing there in our first boat Arcturus, a 1960s glassfibre yawl. I\u2019d long pinned Admiralty charts of the Arctic archipelago on my office wall back in Pennsylvania. But then we sold Arcturus, started 59\u00b0 North and really did sail to Svalbard in 2018, making it all the way up to 80\u00ba North and accomplishing a life\u2019s goal of mine. However, the Arctic is addictive. It was time to aim high once again, this time shooting for Greenland. While not even technically Arctic sailing, the Viking route \u2013 which by our track lies entirely below 66.5\u00b0 north, though only just \u2013 offers challenges beyond sailing to Svalbard. There\u2019s more ice to contend with. The passage from Newfoundland at 800-plus miles is a lot …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4385,"featured_media":150656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[972],"tags":[208,1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4385"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150649"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150668,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150649\/revisions\/150668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150649"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=150649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}