Cape Town to Grenada

[B4A]

Ahoy sailors,

is November a good time to cross from Cape Town to the Caribbean via mid Atlantic route on a catamaran or is it better to wait until January? Has anyone done it before in November?

[captstu]

I left Cape Town on October 18 after studying the pilot charts for weather prediction.

[svrevelations]

Originally Posted by B4A

Ahoy sailors,

is November a good time to cross from Cape Town to the Caribbean via mid Atlantic route on a catamaran or is it better to wait until January? Has anyone done it before in November?

We sailed the Cape Town --> St. Helena --> Salvador route during late December. We had to leave on a specific date as it was a yacht race (Governor's Cup) and we had rough seas for the first 4 days. If it wasn't for the race, we would have waited for a better weather window. The first 4 days was quite hectic with wind in the mid forty knots and gusts exceeding fifty knots. Once we were out of the Cape of Storms influence, the weather settled and we had consistent trade wind conditions for most of the way. We attempted to sail around a mid Atlantic high and sailed closer to the west African coast than usual. The high caught up with us and we have no wind for a couple of days - 500 nm away from St. Helena. Once the high passed, we had some of the best sailing conditions ever and we did not touch the sails again until we neared Salvador.