How to prepare for an Atlantic crossing

If taking on an Atlantic crossing in your own boat is high on your list of sailing dreams, I can thoroughly recommend the experience. However, a dream will stay a dream without making a serious plan to bring it to life.

There’s lots to think about to prepare for a successful and safe voyage. You’ll need the time and resources not only to make the trip but to prepare yourself, your crew and your boat. Having already committed the resources to buying a boat and put the time aside, there remained a host of other issues to deal with.

While many of these are lesser issues, we found that most of our planning came down to five major considerations before embarking on the trans-Atlantic passage in November and December 2023. Having sailed the Atlantic, I am still convinced these are the big questions you’ll need to answer before setting sail:

• Do you want to make the ocean crossing independently, or would you prefer to travel with a rally like the ARC or similar?
• Will the boat and its equipment stand up to the rigours of being permanently ‘on’ for three or more weeks non-stop, and afterwards cruising in the Caribbean?
• How will your boat deliver enough power for myriad electrical devices, both at sea and at anchor in various destinations?
• How will you recruit and train a crew to help achieve the ocean crossing safely?
• How will you provision the boat for your crew for the required amount of time? In our case, a crew of six on a 50ft boat for up to 30 days ate a substantial amount of food!

Alone or in company?

We chose to cross the Atlantic with the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, run by the World Cruising Club, and opted for the ARC+ route, the plus being for an extra leg down from the Canaries to Cape Verde, which takes you far enough south to reliably get into the trade winds before turning west.

It’s run by the World Cruising Club (WCC) who offer guidance in preparation, make marina bookings along the way and provide the reassurance that comes with sailing in company, albeit spread over a very wide area.

Travelling independently, while giving a greater degree of flexibility, particularly in departure times that may line up with weather windows, doesn’t provide anything like the framework that we felt would be helpful on our first major ocean crossing.

What boat for an Atlantic crossing?

We bought our Jeanneau Oceanis 50 Cassini in 2022. She had completed the ARC in 2021 and had been well prepared for ocean crossings, with wind and hydro generators and solar power capacity.

To ease the electrical load, a Hydrovane had also been fitted to steer for long stretches offshore rather than hand- steering or using a power-hungry autopilot. Standing rigging was replaced in 2021 and a new water-maker fitted at the same time.

Upgrading a boat’s running rigging for an Atlantic crossing

If it sounds like our boat was completely ocean-ready, but there are always improvements that could be made and general repairs to do before setting off.

We replaced nearly all the sails’ sheets and halyards, several blocks and some sheaves. They had all worked hard on the last 10,000-mile Atlantic circuit, not to mention the previous 10 years of sailing, and it was beginning to show. The strut vang had been installed upside down at some stage and as a result suffered corrosion leading to a total failure of one the aluminium tubes which we replaced.

Upgrading standing rigging

Since we were about to subject the boat and rig to another 10,000-mile journey, we had a professional rig check done. This uncovered some small cracks in the mast by the lower spreaders and necessitated the mast removal.

Doublers were manufactured and installed around all the spreaders to reinforce them. Doublers are simply extra aluminium plates, shaped and secured around the mast and spreaders to ‘double’ the thickness of the mast section at these high stress points. Doing all of them might seem like overkill, but given the cost of removing the mast and putting it back, it made sense to do everything in one go and have a bit more peace of mind.

What communication devices are needed for an Atlantic crossing?

The World Cruising Club insist that rally yachts must either have satellite or shortwave radio to receive daily weather reports and other information from the organisers, and just as important, to stay in touch with family and friends while away.

We installed a new satellite communication system, Iridium’s Certus 100, which combines satellite capability with 4G, and connected an external 4G aerial to enhance this. We wrote regular blogs to chart our progress so that family and friends could keep up to date, and published these throughout the trip to the Canaries and then across the Atlantic.

Refrigeration

We upgraded one of the two fridges to enable it to do duty as a freezer with the addition of a keel cooler, new door seals and a larger evaporator plate. The refrigeration system was serviced to ensure it was fully gassed and ready for warmer climes.

Shade and cooling

Keeping the boat cool, especially at anchor in the tropics, and without air-conditioning, is a challenge we’ve come across quite a few times on our various yacht charters.

We designed and made our own awnings to cover most of the deck, from stem to stern to keep the deck cool. Together with the addition of wind scoops over the hatches, we’re able to direct air flow across and through the boat, augmented by multiple DC fans throughout. While we can’t cool this air, the movement of it makes the cabin areas more comfortable.

Sails for an Atlantic crossing

All the sails came ashore in the winter and were laid out and inspected minutely in a local church hall. The old main sail was replaced as it was long past its best.

This turned out to be a bigger job than we’d planned as the original sail battens were different lengths to the pockets in the new sail and the luff cars not the right ones for our Harken main sail track.

We also managed to source brand new battens and refitted all the Harken sail and batten cars from the old sail.

Deck gear

We put extra backing plates behind all the mooring cleats to strengthen them in the event we needed to attach a drogue in heavy weather at the stern, and more routinely to form part of the preventer rig for the boom when sailing downwind on the forward and midships cleats.

The bow ones are also better able to withstand the snatch loads from the bridle (which takes the load of the anchor chain) when at anchor in any kind of swell.

Crew selection and preparation

My co-owner Nigel and I have wanted to do this journey for years. Our wives committed to the passage to the Canaries, quite a journey in itself, but were much less keen on the Atlantic Ocean crossing. Our experience at the conclusion of the whole journey was that the journey to the Canaries actually proved much more demanding on boat and crew than the whole of the Atlantic crossing.

As an ‘ownership’ core crew of four, we’d prepared together for the voyage south and west, with the RYA’s Sea Survival and First Aid courses, and Nigel and I enrolled on a one-week Yacht Maintenance course to learn more about how to maintain our boat.

We also signed up together for the Yachtmaster Ocean course to learn more about Astro Navigation and how to use the sextant.

Preparatory courses

To help prepare for the Atlantic crossing, the ARC+ organisers lay on seminars and open days. These included visits to a sail loft, advice on how to repair sails at sea, suggested safety gear, and online presentations on communication and First Aid at sea. The courses and webinars are not mandatory, but the organisers recommend them together with a range of RYA courses to help prepare.

A very comprehensive handbook for the rally was provided by them, listing all the mandatory equipment, mostly safety and communication, that all participants must carry.

A full safety inspection was carried out by the WCC team in Las Palmas in the Canaries before the rally start.

For the Atlantic crossing we felt we needed a total crew of six. Our experience together, of doing yacht deliveries and offshore racing, showed what a difference a watch system of one in three (three hours on, six off) can make to crew, physically and mentally, over two to three hours on and off watch.

A mixture of family and friends were stepping forward initially to crew, but inevitably work and other commitments were limiting factors. In the end, we signed up two retired friends, ‘the two Marks’ from our Royal Navy days, my sister Sarah (a teacher) and another experienced sailor and yacht owner, Ronan, from my Fastnet sailing days (a consultant surgeon and our de facto medic).

Crew familiarisation

We were pleased we’d begun the process early. Our intention at the outset was to get the crew together as much as we could beforehand. Apart from getting to know each other better, we needed to see what strengths each would bring, and delegate some responsibility so that not everything would fall to us, the owners.

All of this had to fit into work and family commitments. After setting up the obligatory WhatsApp group, we had some meetings, to begin with on Zoom, before the first of three planned training weekends on the boat together.

On our first weekend together, the training began with a safety briefing covering everything from the gas cooker to toilet operation. As we have a range of crew on at different times over the next year, we also committed a number of the ‘standard’ activities and procedures to comprehensive check lists, not just for safety, but for things like leaving and returning to our berth, storage, watch standing orders etc. These lists enable more involvement of all the crew in these activities rather than being the sole responsibility of the owners.

On our first training weekend at sea, outside the crowded waters of Portsmouth harbour, we set off for the Eastern Solent to test our man overboard (MOB) drills, getting the crew into the swing of operating the boat and its equipment, taking turns at roles like helming, sail handling, dummy radio Mayday calls and enabling everyone to get an appreciation for how the MOB scenario plays out and the complications that can occur.

One such, and quite unforeseen event, was the accidental activation of a lifejacket while reaching overboard to recover the ‘person’ in the water.

Insightful MOB drill

Apart from the jacket inflating as it should, several things followed which served to enhance the learning opportunity. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) personal locator beacon (PLB), attached to the lifejacket, was activated.

This showed up as a MOB alarm on our own, and other chart plotters in the vicinity. We immediately radioed Solent Coast Guard to alert them, and all other vessels in the vicinity, about the false alarm, providing the beacon’s unique identifying number. The conversation with the Coast Guard was important to prevent an escalation of an accident into a full-blown rescue operation and served as practice in correct radio procedure too.

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We had planned on future training weekends to practise some of the down-wind sail setups we planned to use, familiarise everyone with the Hydrovane steering and just get the Atlantic crew more used to the boat and its systems. But there is a saying in the Armed Forces that ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’.

We were truly relieved that we managed to get one weekend in together. The second planned weekend was blown out by gales raging through the south of England. That could have presented a learning opportunity perhaps, but most likely would have resulted in either damage to the boat or crew. Our third weekend was unfortunately interrupted by emergency repairs to the mast that were mentioned earlier.

However, we did manage to ‘get together’ and continue preparations virtually, using our WhatsApp and Zoom chatrooms.

Provisioning for an Atlantic crossing

Feeding six crew over two legs of the crossing – a week for Canaries to Cape Verde and 16 days for the passage to Grenada, was quite a logistical exercise. Our volunteer caterer, Mark, leaned heavily on two great books: The Boat Cookbook by Fiona Simms, and The Boat Galley Cookbook by Carolyn Shearlock and Jan Irons. While the total passage time was eventually 24 days, we prepared and stored for up to 30 days.

A meal plan was produced, together with the required quantities for six people, which was in turn, translated into a shopping list. Mark and his wife tested the menus and produced some simple modifications to some of them.

Food storage logistics

We stored onboard a very large part of the tinned and dried goods in the UK before we left and topped up in Las Palmas where we also stored fresh food. Remarkably, it was possible to store the vast majority of the food below the saloon and cabin floors in large plastic crates, behind seats and in storage cupboards.

We rigged nets across the back of the boat to store, on one side, fresh fruit and on the other vegetables. We carried 20L emergency water on deck (alongside 80L of spare diesel) and four further 5L water bottles in the saloon, which, as we emptied them, we used to keep food waste compacted and airtight during the passage.

Breakfasts consisted of Weetabix, porridge oats, honey, nuts and dried fruits, while lunch was sardines, corned beef, cheese and ham placed in wraps and bread that we baked every few days.

Since we wanted some variety when it came to our main evening meal, Mark put together a comprehensive menu of 17 different main courses, with puddings of tinned fruit and custard for the last week or so of the ocean passage.

Before each leg, we cooked up and chilled down three meals so that for the first few days we were mostly re-heating dinner rather than starting from scratch.

We hoped, rather than expected, to catch fish to augment our planned diet, and while we drew a blank on the first leg, on our second, Mark caught dorada, wahoo and mahi mahi that fed us for several days at a time.

Joining an Atlantic crossing rally

We decided early on that we’d be joining a rally; this enabled us to prepare the boat and crew with that in mind. The WCC lectures and various briefings were great value, both in the lead up to the event, and again in Las Palmas.

The camaraderie amongst the various ARC+ crews was great and the social aspects of the rally certainly delivered. Some boats did get into difficulties but with the coordination provided by WCC, support was provided to get them across the finish line.

We added equipment (like sat comms) and had to repair things like the mast ahead of the crossing. Throughout, we’ve been pragmatic about the balance between hiring people to repair things like the mast and make the change to LFP batteries for example, and doing much of the rest of the work ourselves.

We replaced the windlass ourselves after its gearbox failed, repaired the autopilot and steering gear and made numerous smaller repairs to the bimini and running rigging. We’ve generally taken the viewthat the more that we can learn and do ourselves, the better prepared we’d be to handle repairs at sea on the ocean crossing where help could be hundreds, even thousands of miles away.

Managing chafe

Preparing for and reducing chafe on sheets and halyards was time well spent, and managed largely by splicing Dyneema covers over high wear areas like the main sail halyard at the masthead and where the genoa sheets pass through the spinnaker pole end.

Managing resources

The discussion about power could equally have been about water, but inheriting a 60L per hour water-maker helped keep water topped up. Power management during the crossing worked well, but after a few light wind days, we did consolidate all the food requiring chilling into one (top-loading) fridge and shut the other one down.

We ran the water maker most days which provided sufficient water for cooking and drinking, and for flannel washes every day and even showers every couple of days. A solar shower provided hot water if required, but cool showers were often preferred

Building confidence

Training, both of the ‘ownership’ crew and the ocean-crossing one, provided us with some new skills. The watch systems worked well and enabled the crew to get sufficient rest, enjoy some films and books during the crossing, and keep watch.

We did not push the boat or crew early in either leg, preferring to settle into a routine with some extra skills development, like how to spot squalls on the radar. We set the sail plans everyone could manage and built up to the full downwind rig over 24 hours. This developed confidence and probably limited damage to only minor repairs over the whole voyage.

Comfort eating

Eating well on a long-distance passage is important to morale and worth spending time on. Provisioning for six people for up to 30 days was an exercise in planning and logistics. We double bagged all the bags of pasta and rice, and used various storage containers that fit snuggly between the frames below the saloon floor to store the tins.

We created detailed storage plans and tried to ensure that what we needed at any stage in the passage was ready to hand. The ‘caterer’ role was essential to the management of all this and ensured that the team preparing meals for the day had everything they needed

Shared responsibility

Involvement of the additional ‘ocean’ crew in a variety of things like medical stores, catering, even fishing, was important to develop team spirit and share the load.

The importance of being able to delegate responsibilities can’t be over-stressed.

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