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IDEAS AND EXPERIMENTS FOR
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Sail a Small Vessel from Gibraltar to the West Indies. Great subject for Science Fair
Make your sailing dream come true with an Atlantic sailing trip to the Caribbean.
A good port to depart from Europe to get ready to cross the Atlantic is Gibraltar. When you entered the Mediterranean Sea you had to convert your boat from United States outfitting to suit the very different needs of the Med. The 120 volt electrical system compatible with all U.S. ports just won't work in the Med. Most European countries have different sized electrical plugs and a 220 volt electrical system is necessary. You had to install a transformer to handle this difference when you arrived into the Med, but now you have to convert back to the 120 volt U.S. electrical standards. Another difference is that propane is not available in the Med and your system had to be converted to use Butane. Now that you are leaving the Med, you have to convert back to propane. And mooring stern-to, which is the rule in most Mediterranean ports, will be different in the U.S. where boats almost never moor stern-to. This will require changing your boarding equipment and lines. All good information for a science fair project.
This is a good place to swap your Med charts for Caribbean charts. The boats coming into the Med will want your Med charts and pilot guides, and you will want their Caribbean material.
When your boat is ready and provisioned, you have to be careful about when you depart. If you go too early you will have to deal with the hurricane season and if you go too late you will have the winter storms in the Atlantic and will not have favorable winds for sailing across. Columbus had it right when he decided which route to follow and what time of the year to leave. In those days, sailing vessels could not go to windward as they can today. Columbus had to have the wind aft to push his square rigged vessels across the Atlantic. The trade winds are a thing of beauty but they are not fully developed until December and leaving from the Canary Islands is the best choice for a 3000 to 4000 mile sail to the Caribbean.
If you depart Gibraltar in late November it will be a six day sail to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria Island. It is a great port for supplies and you will meet over 100 other boats getting ready to make the crossing. You could also cross from the Cape Verdes which are 900 miles south of the Canaries. I do not recommend this route which is only 2000 miles across, 1000 miles shorter than the crossing from the Canaries. However you have to sail that extra 900 miles south to get there, so you are not really saving anything. And provisioning in the Cape Verdes is non existent. Forget about it!. More good info for science fair.
Provisioning in Las Palmas is just perfect and you will make friends with an international group of other trans Atlantic crossers, as well as super for restaurants, sight seeing, casinos, old Spanish architecture and wonderful weather. Columbus knew what he was doing.
You could detour from Gibraltar to Madeira on the way to the Canaries and spend a little time sipping that wonderful wine. Your choice of islands in the Caribbean for your destination could include St. Lucia, Antigua, Grenada, or even the Virgin Islands. It all depends on where you want to go and what you want to do when you arrive in the Caribbean. If you want to go to Venezuela, you might opt to cross to Grenada which is a short hop to South America. If you want to go the States, you might choose the Virgin Islands which are about 400 miles closer to the U.S. than Grenada.
The winds crossing will be dead aft, so you will need special rigging for down wind sailing including whisker poles, a good self steering system and a lot of patience. Have patience for your science fair project as well.
You will need whisker poles because sailboats do not sail too well when the wind is dead aft. They usually have to veer or tack about 30 or 40 degrees off course in order to get any speed and stability. To assist in this down wind maneuver, whisper poles go out from the mast to the left (port) and right (starboard) sides of the boat to keep the sails out. When the winds are light and the ocean roll normally makes the sails flop back and forth and lose their wind, reducing the speed of the boat, the whisper poles will help to keep the sails out to catch the wind, stay on course, and go faster. A manual wind vane is a must for steering.
If you have proper rigging and equipment you can cross the Atlantic with less than a gallon of fuel. Just enough to get out of one harbor and into another about a month later. Make a display for science fair showing all of what you have learned here and much more that you can find with your own research.
The author of this article has sailed for 40 years, has lived full time for ten years as a cruising yachtsman, and has made Atlantic crossings from Gibraltar to the West Indies.
