Blue Water Blog: Atlantic round trip on 31 feet: back to Europe - which route?
Kristina Müller
· 07.05.2019
In August 2018, Lennart Burke and Valentin "Vale" Ahlhaus, friends and Melges 24 sailors from Stralsund, set off on an Atlantic tour with an old IW-31. After adventurous first stages to France, a Crossing the Bay of Biscay against the clock , Bay strolling in the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, they have your ship for the big jump prepared. I n 18 days they finally crossed the Atlantic and three months the Sailing in the Caribbean enjoyed. After the Atlantic lap in cruising mode Lennart Burke wants to take part in the Mini-Transat 2021. On YACHT online he reports on his way there.
We've done it, we've finished everything and we're starting our second Atlantic crossing back to Europe. By the time you read this, we will hopefully be many, many miles from land, heading for the cold north-east.
Single-handed for two - or: Practising for the solo trip
But let's start where I left off in the last blog. The plan was to sail back from the BVIs to St Martin and make all the necessary preparations there. In between, there were only 80 nautical miles to St Martin, against the wind and current: the best - challenging - conditions for a bit of single-handed sailing. So we agreed that Vale would be downgraded to passenger and not be allowed to pull any strings from start to finish. It was great training for me, especially with regard to the short sleep intervals, which worked really well and had to work.
Being below deck for more than 20 to 30 minutes was simply not possible: lots of traffic, a constantly changing wind force of between 15 and 33 knots and wind shifts that had to be taken into account meant a lot of work. Due to the cross course, 80 nautical miles eventually became 130, which took me 30 hours. Nevertheless, it was all great fun and showed me once again that what I was about to do was definitely the right thing for me.
Machine failure in the anchor field
However, when we arrived in Marigot Bay St Martins, the engine went on strike, forcing us to sail through the anchor field and drop anchor without the engine. Everything worked out great, but little did we know that this would be the start of a lot of work and hauling provisions - and one or two surprises.
We actually wanted to dedicate the first day to arriving, but we couldn't keep our hands off the faulty engine; also because we wanted to move to a nicer place. So we cleared in, searched the internet and finally tried to repair the engine. I don't want to say "repair", as we only tried various options to finally get the engine started again.
14 times to the supermarket
In the days that followed, we worked through a long list of jobs: Servicing the engine, sewing the sails and sprayhood, reinstalling a new centreboard, modifying the windvane and overhauling the electrics were just some of the things on the list, and there was a lot more that we really wanted to do before the next Atlantic crossing. We also carried out the usual checks and started to stock up on provisions.
The plan was to hire a car for two days and use it to buy everything we needed. However, we soon realised that we were going to the supermarket every day for our daily shopping anyway - so we might as well fill our rucksacks to the brim to stock up for the crossing. There were "only" 14 purchases, then we had everything on board the "Andiamo" apart from the fresh food.
A nasty surprise
But we were not to enjoy the money saved on the hire car for long. When we tried to remove the growth from the underwater hull (in the water), Vale noticed a gap - albeit a very small one - in the centre of the front of the boat.
Fortunately, we have a knack of not letting ourselves get rattled, but we immediately contacted a boat builder friend in Germany. He gave us brief repair instructions and material recommendations, and we made an appointment with TOBY, the "Time Out Boatyard", to put the boat ashore.
On dry land
Now we were ashore for a week and did everything we could to finish as quickly as possible. In addition to the actual repairs, we polished "Andiamo" to a high lustre, derusted the keel and applied antifouling.
Despite all this, our time at the shipyard was very, very enjoyable. We got to know new people and heard their - sometimes adventurous - stories of how they ended up on St Martin. The danger of getting stuck there is obviously great! And we also enjoyed the comfort of the land with barbecues, much-needed showers after all the boat work, WiFi, tables, chairs, sun sails and cats and dogs to stroke. We would love to come back here later. But then please, without having to repair the boat.
On a Friday at the end of April, "Andiamo" was craned back into the water at nine in the morning. The weather forecast was good, so we wanted to set off immediately afterwards and had completed the last item on our to-do list the day before: stocking up on fruit and vegetables. It was an unimaginable feeling to be able to tick all the boxes after all that time!
So now it's time for the big jump.
How do we want to sail across the Atlantic?
There were two possible routes to choose from. One was the popular and well-known northern route via Bermuda. This would certainly bring us stronger and clearer winds, but we could also expect bad weather, lower temperatures and, especially in April, storms.
The alternative would be the southern route, where you come from the Eastern Caribbean, leave Bermuda to the north and start by sailing as high upwind as possible against the trade winds. On the approach, you should make sure that winds from the south-east are forecast for the first few days.
The advantage of the southern route is that you stay warmer for longer, don't get close to the ice edge and there is less chance of getting caught in a storm.
We have decided to sail as southerly a route as possible, but not too conservative either. I think the wind will show us the way. It's important for us not to get stuck in the calm zone above the trade winds for too long, but we have plenty of diesel in the tank.
Will it be tougher than the first Atlantic crossing?
We are very motivated and are expecting another great adventure, which will perhaps be even more challenging than the first Atlantic crossing. After all, we can expect constantly changing wind directions and perhaps even the second storm of our journey.
But we are also very happy to be getting closer to home. There are some great new projects waiting for us. Vale wants to go to university, and I have a job waiting for me. Freshly baptised mini 6.50. Together we also want to get our Melges 24 project going again and take part in regattas.
But now it's time to cross the Atlantic again. Andiamo!
