Our trip from the Azores to mainland Europe was a bit different than one of Madrone’s typical passages. Usually, our weather strategy is to wait for good wind for at least the first four or five days so that we maximize our chance of decent sailing at the start of the trip.
For this trip, however, we watched the weather for a few weeks without seeing the kind of downwind or reaching conditions that lead to good progress and comfortable sailing. Instead, weeks of steady winds from the northeast would have meant bashing upwind into 6′ (2m) waves in order to sail across to northern Spain.
So, when a change showed up in the forecast it had our full attention. The positives in the new forecast were that the waves were predicted to reduce to 3-4′ (~1m), we’d have some westerly wind in the middle of the passage for downwind sailing, and the typical NE wind would actually swing N or even a bit NW. The challenges were some motoring likely to be required at the beginning, some more as we neared the coast, and then a gale predicted off Cape Finisterre not only for the day of our arrival, but for the following three days as well.
This was the best weather window we’d seen since arriving in the Azores. After a lot of back-and-forth discussion, and given that there was no sign of further improvement on the horizon, we decided to take it.
Just as predicted, we ended up getting the opportunity to exercise our trusty Yanmar for two separate 20 hour stretches. And also as predicted, the sailing in between those stretches was nice – we had two days of downwind broad reaching under full main and poled-out genoa split by one day of close reaching with a single reef in the main and the same in the genoa.
And luckily for us, the gale of Finisterre didn’t really materialize. While it still showed up in one of the two forecasts, we only saw a few gusts above 20 knots as we wove our way through the unbelievable amount of traffic that was transiting the choke point in the shipping lanes off the NW tip of Spain.
In the end, we were the beneficiaries of some good luck. The best parts of the forecast were exactly as predicted, and the challenging parts weren’t as tough. We’ll take it!
Passage Summary – Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, Azores, Portugal to Vigo, Spain
- Passage time: 5 days, 12 hours
- Straight line distance: 816nm
- Total distance sailed: 877nm – we diverted north of the rhumb line to get a better angle on the forecasted gale
- Average speed: 6.6 kts
- Number of flying fish on deck: 0
- Number of whale sightings: 0
- Number of freighters in shipping lanes off Cape Finisterre: 50+
- Approximate size of dolphin pod that accompanied us for half and hour on our last day: 50-100
