Our Transatlantic Passage on AWEN, Outremer 52

We made landfall after a 16-day sailing voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on January 5,2024 after spending the holidays at sea. This was the second leg in our All Together Maiden Voyage from La Grande Motte, France, through the Gibraltar Strait, to the Canary Islands, crossing to land in the Caribbean, then island hopping our way to Miami for a quick stop before our final destination for the season, the Bahamas. For all of us, it would also be our first-time celebrating Christmas and New Year’s at sea.

The sunrises were delicious, with colors only seen in a candy store, the Milky Way proudly revealing itself before the moonrise steals the show. However, only those things were constants during this transatlantic leg. We had hoped for well-established tradewinds that would deliver us quickly under the power of our asymmetrical spinnaker for most of the trip, but this was not our fate. 

An abnormally positioned high pressure system further north disrupted the establishment of the trades just before we left. This turned an anticipated easy downwind voyage, into a more complex passage with a sideways and aggressive sea state out of the gate. If we went too far south, we wouldn’t have enough wind, if we headed just west, we would have worse conditions upwind. So, we needed a fine line to get through this first section of the trip. The good news is that this transatlantic passage offered the opportunity for a plethora of sail changes and learning experiences, which was the priority for this leg after all.

Onboard joining us as a skipper/instructor for this leg was Nikki Henderson, world renowned for her bluewater and racing experience but more important for us, her incredible teaching skills, and familiarity with the Outremer performance catamarans. 

Our goal was that by having her onboard we could accelerate learning our boat, learn the nuances to safely maximize its performance, and help us round out our risk management plan so we could be prepared for any situation that went pear-shaped. Our intent was to take these learnings and apply them to how we wanted to sail together double handed going forward.

A Mutable Transatlantic Passage

There were three phases to this transatlantic passage, the sporty conditions leaving the Canaries, middle section with shifty winds, and the final approach where the trades reestablished themselves. We made the decision to leave with half tanks of fuel, with a preference to wait out wind holes but with enough of it to sensibly parlay with a ship in a medical emergency, charge batteries and get in and out of ports. While other boats chose to leave Las Palmas with full tanks and jerry cans lined on their decks, we made the decision to keep the boat light (with 220L) and sail through the conditions.

We left on December 20th with a proper dolphin escort offshore, taking the first window after stronger winds passed over the Canaries. We started out with manageable winds with full sails up (main and genoa) with about 18 knots of wind but with nightfall on the first night we took a reef in the main and genoa, using our new downwind reefing method, with winds up to 25 knots (145 TWA) with large, short waves through the acceleration zone between the islands. 

We got a chance to practice a water ingress drill (of course, in the middle of the night) because it was then we discovered a faulty hatch on a portlight allowed saltwater to enter. 

A typical type of discovery in a shakedown. We hove-to and epoxied the seal shut and continued our journey. Those first few days we settled into the movement of the boat, learned and practiced downwind reefing, and began to work together as a team; all this before leaving the wind shadow of Tenerife. 

The boat speed at this point, even in the challenging sea state, was averaging about 9 knots.

We finally shook off the reefs and raised the Code 65 as our direction shifted and we saw lighter winds. 

Before leaving Las Palmas, we had a hunch about our preventer, so we had purchased supplies and were able to prepare a new one in these first couple of days. 

That proved to be a smart decision because it ended up breaking twice later in the trip.

As the winds lightened and shifted, we raised the asymmetrical spinnaker, but it didn’t last long because we spent the next couple of days switching between the Code 65 and the asymmetrical A2 with the wind conditions; great experience for both of us dousing and hoisting the A2. The Code 65 was originally rigged for manual furling but during our neauvage (bringing the boat back to Outremer for final servicing after handover), we shifted it to the helm side of the boat and lengthened the line to allow for it to be furled single-handed from a winch if needed.  During this time in our voyage, we averaged about 9.7 knots in 15.8 average knots of wind and saw 229 nautical miles in one day, a high point for sure.

By Christmas we were all very comfortable sailing the A2 spinnaker upwards of 18-20 knots of wind at night. While we had done an A2 overnight to Corsica earlier in the season and briefly during Leg 1 from La Grande Motte to Gibraltar, anxiety levels were high in the beginning. Nikki also rigged us a martin breaker system to release the tack that gave us and emergency break to douse quickly if we needed to and we changed our method from hand hoisting and dousing to using the winch on the bow. We also got a ton of practice with the gybing procedure double-handed, which was well worth the effort and time. We typically have done this using the autopilot to steer through the gybe, but I got more practice doing it manually while Stephane managed the sheets and main. Nikki also talked us through a letterbox douse in the event we needed to do one to absolutely get it down if all else failed. That’s when you slip the lazy sheet through the slot between the boom and the main and pull the kite through to the cockpit.

At this point in the transatlantic passage the full moon was spectacular, but elusive on camera. As the flying fish were busy doing kamikazes on deck for the next couple of days (and I don’t mean the drink), we found our expected wind hole. The direction too high to fly the spinnakers, we used the Code 65 which by this time had proven to be a very versatile sail. At 6.7 knots of wind speed, we were still able to do 5.6 SOG, which is truly remarkable and everything we had hoped for when we decided to switch to an Outremer from the production catamaran we had before.