Sail Canary Islands to the Azores

Two years ago, we sailed to Porto Santo from mainland Portugal, arriving with a dead engine. At some point, salty sea water had forced its way into the engine from the exhaust, wrecking damage as it sloshed around for several days.

Porto Santo was only meant to be a pitstop on the way to the Azores, but what followed was the hardest and most stressful period of our sailing life so far. We chose to rebuild the engine on the island, with no previous experience. We did it, which was amazing, but it also took more out of us than expected, never mind the lost time.

Now we were back on track. Could we make “a successful navigation across an ocean to a tiny target?” (Thanks Mark for the quote).

During our months in Gran Canaria, we’d updated and upgraded Emerald’s safety inventory and felt ready to head out onto the ocean.

We stayed much longer than intended in Las Palmas as we were waiting for a new liferaft to arrive. It had been a frustrating wait starting in April, but by mid June we had it on board.

Now we could depart! Our preferred plan was to make a two hop journey to the Azores, with a pitstop in Madeira or Porto Santo. However, the weather during the last two weeks of June was not favourable for anywhere north, but there was a glimmer of a potential window at the end of June.

The Azores high was forecast to remain stable for at least a week, delivering winds of 15 to 20 knots from the north east. These winds would mean a beat to windward, something that we rarely do. Emerald points OK with winds from about 45 degrees. Below that and she slows significantly. Into this we added the direction and height of the waves. They were forecast to be from the north to north east, starting near 2m and thankfully reducing as the week went on.

Bashing into waves creates a stopping force. Emerald is heavy, making her comfortable in a big sea. But, if she gets slowed too much by a wave it takes some momentum to get her going again.