Our crossing is complete, and thanks to Ollie we managed to blog including pictures on the route on Day 2, Day 4, Day 8, Day 9, Day 14, Day 17 with Day 22 being the final day with a post from the Azores.

We sailed roughly 2630 nautical miles over 22 days according to our Garmin Inreach, which means an average speed of around 5 knots (4.98). If we were to sail as the crow flies, the distance would be 2160 nautical miles, so we sailed 500 miles more than the most direct route.

During lighter winds, or when against annoying swell we would use the Volvo Penta D2-40 engine at 1000rpm to keep our speed up and give us a boost, (roughly 1-1.5 knots extra). Actually having run the engine for a prolonged period it was easier to figure out our fuel consumption, and on average we used 0.78 liters per hour at 1000rpm.

We didn’t set off alone, and both Escapade and Saga set off on the same day as us, but in the morning and from Saint Martin. Extress, Blue Note and Atlas all set off 4 days later, but caught up due to higher winds and a slightly more direct route.

Regularly in contact via email using our Iridium Go with the other boats, we had a nightly position report for everyone, which I plotted and you can see below. (There is also a combined screenshot from OpenCPN with dated waypoints at the bottom of this post).

At one point as we were all leaving the Caribbean we actually all sailed within the same 50 nautical miles of the Atlantic ocean before then splitting off for our more southerly or northerly routes.

Artemis were in Bermuda and set off a few days after both groups, meeting Extress etc on their northerly route after a few days.

All in all, we had a good crossing, seeing lots of dolphins, jellyfish, birds, and many cargo ships, some of which had to alter course to avoid us.

For the entire crossing, we were close hauled, meaning the boat was healed over quite a lot, it was such a relief stepping back onto flat land again after living at 45 degrees for 22 days! (really it’s more like a 8-15deg heal angle but you wouldn’t guess it when you’re sliding across the cockpit floor!)

Finally, here is the OpenCPN screenshot of all the boat routes with dated waypoints. (Click to open the image full screen)