On SV ATLAS - Outremer 51

Gibraltar to Grenada - via Canaries and Cape Verde

  
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   Updated 14th July 2025
 
SV ATLAS

Morten, Petter and Hans joined Atle for the crossing from Gibraltar to Las Palmas. Enjoying Petter's cooking!

Cloud hanging over the cliff of Gibraltar.

Planning the crossing from Gibraltar to Canaries. We departed Gibraltar morning of 23rd October, stopped overnight in Tangiers and arrived in Lanzarote October 28th after 84 hours and 784 miles.

While waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive we took a drive around and to the top of Gran Canarai. Interesting rock formation and Petter got to fly his drone.

The Atlantic crossing crew at the dinner in Las Palmas before departure: Knut Wettergreen, Petter Nilsen, Atle Løge, Øyvin Halle

Stocking up on medicine. None with any recreational value and more importantly we did not need much of them on the crossing.

Matthieu and Marc from Outremer came to Las Palmas and took us out practicing downwind sailing. This picture taken from a fellow Outremer ARC+ participant

ATLAS leaving Las Palmas heading out to the start on 10th November.

Fruits and vegetables storage. Did not really work as well as we had hoped.

Fish

We could fish between Gibraltar and Cape Verde and part of the Atlantic crossing, but as we got further west the sargasso seaweed started and it became impossible to fish. This is a Mahi Mahi we caught and cooked immediately. Nice tasting fish.

After 5 days and 900 miles we arrived Mindelo, San Vicente, Cape Verde at 2AM on 15th November and spent a week there.

We took a day-trip over to the island of Santo Antao. Completely different with lush green valleys. This is an old volcano crater where they were growing vegetables.

There is a group of people from Stavanger that have started a Tuna hatchery and plan to breed tuna fish. At the time we visited there was no tuna. They were preparing the food for the tuna and had these Jack-fish providing eggs to feed the small tuna. Apparently there is a problem with tuna when they become 19grams: then they start eating each other. Not easy to breed.

Knut and Petter planning meals. We ate extremely well with Petter's cooking.

Sailing west the sunset came earlier and earlier every day.

Full moon on night watch somewhere in the north Atlantic.

Our fastest day with 9.9 knots average and almost 240 nautical miles. The max speed of 23.8 knots was from a gust of wind and surfing down the wave. Way too fast. Scary stuff, but ATLAS held up well.

After 2251 miles, 12 days 3 hours 45 minutes and 50 seconds we arrived across the finish line in Grenada. 9 "line honors" and 6th in our class after handicap applied.

Goal was to be top 10 across the line, so a decent result. there were 95 boats in the rally.

ARC crew met us with a welcome package and rum-punches.

After arrival we got to tour the island and did some local rum tasting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a link to the 2024/2025 movements of Atlas.

 

When we bought ATLAS we had a plan to go around Mediterranean for at least 2 seasons and then see what was in line. As we grew more confident in the boat and our abilities, we decided to take a season in the Caribbean. To get there an Atlantic crossing is required. We were looking at the benefits of joining ARC or ARC+ or just go on our own. At the end decided to join the ARC+ that starts from Las Palmas 10th November and stop for a week in Cape Verde ending up in Grenada. Lynne left ATLAS in Gibraltar and Petter, Hans, and Morten joined for the crossing to Las Palmas with a short stopover in Tangiers, Morocco before continuing to Lanzarote then onwards to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria. This last segment was quite a rough crossing and the most uncomfortable ride on the whole trip with waves at 3 meter, coming in forward of the beam. In Las Palmas Hans and Morten left. Knut and Øyvin joined for the rest of the crossing. We spent a week in Las Palmas Marina provisioning, training, attending courses and briefings as well as getting to know the other participants. There were 13 Norwegian boats out of the 95 total boats, well represented. We left Las Palmas on 10th November and sailed 5 days to Mindelo, Cape Verde. It was nice to have a break on the trip and eplore another country. The Island we stopped at (San Vincent) is pretty much a desert, quite poor, but the marina was functional. With almost 100 ARC boats in there it was quite social and a very nice environment. On 22nd November we left Cape Verde and started the actual Atlantic crossing to Grenada. We quickly got into a daily routine sharing the watches in 3 hour shifts. Flew the gennaker for the first 5-6 days and then switched to the downwind spinnaker and left it up for a week with only minor movements of the halyard to prevent chafing. Once the spinnaker sail started working properly, we climbed from 18th to 9th place. We had no injuries or any serious damage on the trip, which is quite an achievement in itself. We likely could have taken more risks and gained a few places, but overall we were satisfied with the crossing. Once well placed in Port Louis Grenada, Knut and Petter left and Gerd and Lynne joined to start the Caribbean cruising.

 

Best regards,

Hans, Morten, Øyvin, Knut, Petter and Atle