The North Atlantic in November

As we are assembling and writing this week’s edition of Cruising Compass we’ve been keeping an eye on the progress of La Vagabonde as they sail east across the North Atlantic from Hampton, VA to Portugal. When we learned awhile ago that Riley, Elayna and Lenny, the stars of the YouTube phenomenon Sailing La Vagabonde, would ferry climate activist Greta Thunberg across the ocean so she could attend the UN Climate conference in Madrid, Spain, which starts in early December, we took a deep breath. The North Atlantic in November can be a real weather mine field. 
    In the top PredictWind graphic, you can see La Vagabonde’s route; they left the U.S. and dodged a big low that was off the coast by turning dramatically south. Then they turned east to sail beneath the low. They have had 25 plus knots of breeze most of the time and the seas are large, conditions that can be challenging for a light-weight performance cruising catamaran. Earlier this week, the National Hurricane Center identified a developing low just north of the Virgin Islands and named it tropical storm Sebastien. The forecast route, as shown in the bottom graphic, has the tropical storm moving northeast at eight knots toward La Vagabonde’s current easterly course. This morning, Riley and Elayna slowed their boat down; perhaps they will try to let Sebastien pass well in front of them. We’ll stay tuned to see what develops.
 Sailing in the North Atlantic in November is taking a considered risk. The 70 boats in the Salty Dawg Fall Rally have just made their passages south from Hampton to Antigua and elsewhere without too much bad weather. The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers will send off 250 boats this fall for the passage west from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean, which is usually a squally Trade Wind passage. So, there are a lot of sailors out in the North Atlantic this month. The eastward passage that La Vagabonde is making in the mid-latitudes raises the weather stakes since they are not sailing in the Trades or sailing away from the Atlantic gales, instead they are dodging their way through the gales. And now there’s Sebastien to contend with.
    What do you think about sailing in the North Atlantic in November? Email me at: george@bwsailing.com
Follow La Vagabonde’s passage here. 
Track TS Sebastien here.