Sailing to the Azores

Leaving Porto Santo - Credit: Christina & Peter, SY Timshal

Finally, we set sail late in the afternoon of the 6th of May after waiting several days for a good weather window. As recommended by the weather routing software we took a course much more west hoping that we could avoid the low wind condition in the centre of the high pressure system. This, unfortunately did not really work out as the elongation of the high pressure system was much larger than predicted. During the first night and also the following day and night we had fantastic sailing conditions with wind between 15 and 22kn some 60 to 80 degrees from starboard. T-Fish was flying with hull speed and somtimes above when surfing down the waves. On the second day the wind fell asleep but came back during the night before dying off completely. In order to maintain a good average speed we used the engine whenever the speed fell below 4kn. We arrived in Santa Maria after 3 days and 21 hrs, more than half of the distance (564 nm) under sail.

The biggest challenge was a malfunctioning autopilot (again) which required continues hand-steering. It is amazing how fast one is loosing course in the open sea without any orientation when not focusing on the compass for a few seconds. This explains our zig-zack course and the milage of 564 nm while the direct distance is only around 491nm.

Here a few impressions: Sailing to the Azores