A passage to Brazil

Unlike a traditional downwind passage direct to the Caribbean from the Cape Verde Islands, a voyage to Brazil is an altogether more challenging undertaking given it involves crossing several very different weather systems. The passage can essentially be divided into three discreet sections. Firstly, it starts whilst still in the NE trade wind belt, involving classic downwind sailing for the initial few hundred miles heading south from the Cape Verdes.

Refuelling in Mindelo, Cape Verde

Secondly, the notorious Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) must be crossed. Known otherwise as the Doldrums this band of ocean can be anything from 300 to 600 miles wide and is defined by every possible type of weather – ranging from flat calms to violent wind squalls, torrential rain outbursts and thunderstorms. The ITCZ is also almost always subject to huge irregular ocean swells as the south bound ocean currents of the North Atlantic collide with those coming up from the South Atlantic.

Finally, once through the dreaded Doldrums you encounter the Southeast Trade winds. Originating almost four thousand miles away off the coasts of southern Africa, they blow diagonally across the South Atlantic, before arriving off the NE Coast of Brazil. Whilst renowned amongst sailors as predictable and consistent sailing winds, it is imperative not to enter the SE trades belt too far west given you will end up sailing several hundred miles hard on the wind to complete the voyage.

Planning Saecwen’s passage across this stretch of the Atlantic required some additional caution given we would be cutting across the ITCZ in peak hurricane season.  With the majority of Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes originating in the four-hundred-mile belt of ocean to the south and southwest of the Cape Verde Islands before developing and heading west towards the Caribbean, it was clearly going to be critical that we chose our moment of departure carefully. Modern weather forecasting is now sufficiently sophisticated to give a week’s reliable visibility as to what may be lying ahead. So, having arrived in the Cape Verde Islands, we started watching the forecasts on a six hourly basis to see when (and if) a safe window of opportunity would present itself to make the break across the ITCZ to hurricane-safe seas.

Downwind sailing into the Doldrums

At the beginning of the last week of September, it became apparent that a safe weather window might soon be opening. The tropical disturbance that created Hurricane Gabrielle had just passed through, with the storm now heading out into the Atlantic. Meanwhile during the coming week, the ITZC was looking unusually quiet with the NE trades pushing well south, giving us the perfect fair wind to get deep into the zone.

Once we decided to take this window of opportunity we had a frenetic 48 hours in Mindelo, the Cape Verde Islands main port, to prepare for sea. A damaged sail needed repairing, an extra 180 litres of diesel fuel was procured and lashed on deck in large jerry cans to see us through the Doldrum calms, the leaking heads was fixed along with numerous other jobs that had accumulated on the ship’s snag list. Meanwhile we scoured the local markets for as much fresh fruit, vegetables and eggs to keep us well stocked for over two weeks at sea.

We eventually set sail south on 26^th September, with 48 hours to spare before our weather window opened. This meant we had time for a quick visit to Brava, our last Cape Verdean Island.

Departure anchorage: Faja da Aqua, Ilha de Brava, Cape Verde

One of the first yachtsmen to visit this smallest and most remote of the islands was my Great Great Uncle AG MacPearson, who called in here in 1935. In 1989 in the old Saecwen we retraced his steps and spent a week exploring this fascinating island whilst en-route for the Caribbean. So it was wonderful to be able to visit this beautiful place once again and spend our last night before departure anchored in the dramatic bay of Faja da Aqua on Brava’s western coast.

On the 28^th September we finally left the Cape Verdes to start our Atlantic crossing. We were first blessed with four days of NE trade winds which enabled us to set the twin foresails and gently push on south. With the winds rarely exceeding 12 knots we made modest daily runs of 112 and 109 miles – but were blessed with some idyllic sailing conditions. We had a pod of false killer whales playing around the bow on our first day out – and the next day were surrounded at sunset by a huge group of Atlantic Spotted dolphins.  These winds took us deep into the ITCZ but inevitably they faded out and the calms of the Doldrums eventually set in around us. With our extra diesel supplies on board we were fully prepared to now motor on through the remaining section of the zone to break out into the SE trade winds within the next couple of days or so.

Atlantic spotted dolphins

After 24 hours of motoring disaster struck. At four in the morning the engine started making strange noises and had to be immediately shut down.  It became apparent that the cooling circulating water system had failed and the engine had overheated. We tried all the obvious things to remedy this including checking the water strainers for blockage (we had been passing huge clumps of Sargassum weed) and removing and checking the freshwater pump impeller – which was fine. It soon became clear that the pump itself had failed, with no solution at hand.  Possibly the alarming sea water temperatures of over 27 degrees were the cause.

We were now becalmed in the middle the Doldrums without any power to get out within the period of the safe weather window. Meanwhile the forecast was rapidly changing. A huge tropical wave was now coming west off the African coast and the weather models were showing a potential topical depression developing in the coming days more or less exactly where we were located.

Tropical storm Jerry originating to our North (Saecwen is the white dot)

For the next three days we clawed our way on in rapidly deteriorating conditions. Some days we would drift round in circles for hours with no wind, In Jem’s 2 hour night watch the faint wind boxed the compass twice, we also hit a record low of 0,8 miles in 2 hours, albeit at least in the right direction. One night we were hit by a violent 30 knot rain squall which lasted two hours. But for the most part we were able to make between 2-3 knots of painful progress southward. Meanwhile just to our north, as forecast, a definitive cyclonic system was forming throwing off huge amounts of rain under regular jet-black line squalls. Everything on board now was damp and the heat and humidity was quite oppressive. This tropical disturbance within days went on to materialise into Tropical Storm Jerry.

Thankfully we had been able to keep just ahead of the southern edge of this developing nightmare and finally on day 9 of the passage the light southerly winds that had been constantly heading us started to increase in strength and show the first signs of some easting. Soon it became apparent that we could just about make the course for Brazil and with much rejoicing we put the boat over to port tack. Our escape from the Doldrums was marked with a huge perfect rainbow crossing the sky to the north. We had finally found the SE Trades!

Farewell and good riddance to the Doldrums

At first, we were hard on the SSE 18kn winds, leading to a very uncomfortable 24 hours as we pounded away close hauled into a 2.5-meter sea. However, wind soon came round fully into the southeast bringing the wind onto our beam, Saecwen’s fastest point of sailing. The last three days of the passage saw some of the finest sailing any of us had ever witnessed with Saecwen flying along at 7 knots. Our 24 hr runs of 168, 164 and 167 miles respectively – set new records for our magnificent ship.

The next big milestone occurred at 0715 on October 7^th when we all gathered in the cockpit to watch our latitude read off at 00 degrees, 00 minutes, 00 seconds. We had crossed the equator! Shortly afterwards the boat was visited by His Majesty King Neptune to induct Heloise, Emily and Jem – who had yet to “cross the line” - as fully fledged “Shellbacks”. This process involved searing a solemn oath of everlasting loyalty and devotion to His Majesty, a liberal dousing with seawater and then anointing with a few dead flying fish who had taken their last breath having beached themselves on Saecwen’s decks.

Crossing the Equator - King Neptune comes aboard

Finally on 9^th October, with much clanging of the ship’s bell, we caught our first sight of the stunning peaks of the Brazilian Island of Fernando da Noronha at 15 miles distance. It was an incredible landfall - as fine as any I could recall and we were all awestruck by this extraordinary island with it’s unique profile of islets and dramatic peaks as we rapidly closed the land. Without an engine entering the crowded anchorage involved rather a hairy sail dodging multiple buoys and small local boats, until we finally rounded up into the wind and dropped anchor just in time to witness one of our best sunsets yet.

Land Ho!

 Our customary bottle of landfall champagne was soon popped to celebrate having sailed 14,000 miles in 12 days – and having safely crossed the Atlantic Ocean. It has been an eventful passage.

Safely anchored at Fernando da Noronha