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10 Best Sailboats For Circumnavigation

Best Sailboats For Circumnavigation | Life of Sailing

Last Updated by

Daniel Wade

December 28, 2023

Circumnavigation means to successfully navigate around any sort of landmasses such as an island or continent. Whilst in yesteryear we would have relied on compasses, maps, stars and uncomfortable conditions, now sailboats are fitted with a vast array of equipment to help you circumnavigate anywhere you choose in a comfortable and timely manner.

It would seem reasonable to suggest that a small and lightweight boat wouldn't have the capability to circumnavigate effectively, but this is no longer the case. Due to the developments in the understanding of technology and materials over the last 20 years or so, mass produced boats are more than capable of surviving any conditions providing the crew are prepared properly. With the improvements in engineering especially, long gone are the days where slow, bulky, and claustrophobic cruisers were your only option. You can travel in style!

Ultimately, this article is going to answer the question: what are the best sailboats for circumnavigation? There are a few major things that you need to consider. Principle amongst them are the facilities on board the sailboat, the ease of use, how the deck and cabins are organized, the space available and finally the performance of the vessel overall. Take your time and think carefully about it.

Table of contents

10 Best Sailboats for Circumnavigation

1. jeanneau sun odyssey 54ds.

Starting off our list with one of the strongest contenders, the Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 54DS certainly ticks the luxury box. What's impressive is just how visually striking and spacious the 54DS is. It has big, swooping curves that give this sailboat a really distinctive shape. When this line of boat made its debut in 2003, the superstructure was considered to be one of the very best in the world and it still ranks highly today. Not only this, but the interior is designed to be luxurious and you have a surprising amount of space available in the cabin.

There's more to this boat than the looks though. The build quality on the whole is absolutely fantastic and it's quite powerful too. Many previous owners have attributed the high standard build quality, powerful performance and the excellent superstructure to the predictable and reliable performance. This is ideal for circumnavigation as you want a boat that is going to perform predictably and not throw you any major surprises!

A few other notable features on the 54DS are deep-draft keel and a standard in-mast furling mainsail. It also comes with an optional full battened main. All of these features are considered to be standard equipment for long distance cruisers.

All the high-quality features come at an expensive price. The price is certainly above average for a sailboat like this and you could make do with something a little less advanced but it's important to remember that the price is balanced out by the quality of the interior and stunning shape. Certainly some food for thought.

2. Amel Super Maramu

A highly regarded design by the Frenchman Henri Amel, this sailboat was his idea of what a high-performance circumnavigating sailboat should look like. The main point of the design was to encourage as much performance out of the boat as possible in deeper waters. This means less luxury, and more functionality. Oh, and not to mention that is undeniably French, so bear that in mind.

The boat itself looks like a traditional circumnavigating sailor, but it's got a lot of modern features to offer. The ship itself is designed to be operated by a small crew of two people. Everything is about efficiency. For example, the ketch rig is designed to be simple yet highly effective. Even the sails are electrically controlled! This means that the boat is really easy to use and manageable. It's recommended that for sailors who have a couple of years' experience because a few components can be a little bit complicated to do.

One thing that you might want to consider is that the Super Maramu isn't designed to be customised. Coming in at 53 feet long, it simply wouldn't be worth the effort to make any exterior modifications. It's a similar story for the interior as well. All the interior is functional so if you are looking for a more luxurious circumnavigator, then this wouldn't be a good option.

3. Hallberg-Rassy 42 and 42F

The Hallberg-Rassy range is known for their toughness and almost mythical build quality. The design is ruthlessly efficient, seen as there is absolutely no wasted space at all. This means that everything is focused on functionality, but this comes at the expense of it being a little bit less comfortable. The relatively simple exterior design is fitting in terms of the overall theme of the boat, simplicity and efficiency.

The layout below decks is also designed to be as efficient and user friendly as possible. This means that the boat is easy to use as well as the interior having a surprisingly fantastic finish to it. The design adds a lot of value to this boat because the ease of use and quality mean it's a fantastic place to be. Of course, this is depending on the amount of time you're going to spend circumnavigating but for a long trip, this is wonderful.

A word on the performance. It is very good too. It wouldn't be considered one of the best performing boats on this list but it's certainly more than good enough to get you where you need to go.

4. Hylas 54

The German Frers design can be seen again in the Hylas 54 but it's no surprise considering how good the design actually is. The Hylas 54 is designed to be a good balance between performance and efficiency.

The hull is built to an extremely high standard and the boat can also be driven very easily. In fact, its so easy to sail that achieving over 200-miles per day isn't too much of a struggle. On the deck, the design is compact and efficient which is perfect if you're an experienced sailor.

Another strong feature of the Hylas 54 is that there's a great amount of space and degree of flexibility below decks. You are free to choose how you want the layout to look as well as the quality of the finish. It even has a raised saloon version of which further adds to the flexibility and space available.

Owners are generally positive about this modal as well as the newer model, the Hylas 56. One of the biggest advantages is that it's really easy to handle. This would make a great, all round option for circumnavigating where you have the freedom to make it feel like home!

5. Beneteau 57

This is possibly one of the best, high-end options on the market currently! The Beneteau 57 is designed to be as stylish and reliable as possible. It would be fair to categorise it as a luxury cruiser that's for sure!

The hull is designed to be as fast and as sleek as possible. Paired with the stunning hull, the cockpit is placed as central as possible to maximise the amount of space available on the deck as well as keeping everything as neat and organised below decks.

The facilities below decks don't suffer either. All the systems have a fantastic finish to them and on the whole are very impressive. There is a fairly reasonable amount of space considering that the length of the boat is over 50 feet long.

It's fair to say that if you want to enjoy your tip but do it in luxury, then the Beneteau 57 is an absolutely fantastic option. The biggest benefit is that the price is extremely competitive considering the build-quality and luxurious feel you pay for.

6. Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 49

A rather surprising selection on the list! The Jeanneau Sun Odyssey isn't actually designed for circumnavigation by the charter market. However, due to its size and adaptability, it works extremely well as a circumnavigator.

Featuring a large cockpit, easy to maintain sailplan and a wonderful all-round performance, this really is a boat that can do pretty much anything you ask of it. A unique feature that this boat has is that it has a dedicated sail lock in the bow of the ship which is ideal for adjusting the height of the sail.

Below decks, you'll find a boat that has a variety of options for you. The cabin is designed to be twin aft but, if you remove the bulkhead, you can change the space into a massive single cabin. Below decks also feature a large navigation station which is a cool feature. The finish of the interior is also completed to a high standard which means that it's a comfortable and relaxing place to be!

7. Lagoon 440

This is a sailboat that has a lot of accolades. More lagoons have crossed the Atlantic. This is due to the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. In regards to the 440 modal in particular, they have taken part in the Atlantic Rally more often than any other lagoon. So, what does all this mean? Well, the Lagoon 440 is designed to be a quality cruiser that's incredibly reliable and safe.

On the deck, there is an awful lot of room. You have a saloon, a big cockpit, a wide trampoline forward and the flybridge. This means that there's plenty of space to socialise with your other crew members or in the harbour. It also means that you have enough space for some privacy too which is fantastic depending on how much time you're going to spend on the boat.

Below decks, it's very much the same story. The interior is polished and refined as well as having an enormous amount of space. This is absolutely ideal for having a large crew and enjoying your journey!

One final thing to highlight is the performance of the boat itself. It certainly isn't the fastest, but the boat will certainly get you anywhere in a good amount of time.

8. Beneteau Oceanis 473

The Beneteau Oceanis 473 is an extremely popular sailboat for circumnavigation. The design was actually meant for the charter market but because of the vast size, comfortable features and the fact its relatively affordable, it became a target for cruisers looking for a bargain.

There hasn't been a lot of modifications for circumnavigation, but the boat is good at handling heavy weather and performs in a stable and predictable manner. This means that it's incredibly easy to control and perfect for a long-distance cruise.

The interior is a little bit funky too! There are a few different cabin styles but the most popular one is the three-cabin version. The rooms are big enough, but they aren't ideal to use on the sea because some of the room is wasted. However, it is excellent for harbour parties.

9. Bavaria 42

The Bavaria 42 is the most popular mass-produced boat to cross oceans. The sailboat is designed to be a no-nonsense, affordable, and adaptable cruiser. It's also well engineered for the price.

On the deck, a long waterline and fairly good sail area provide a good amount of performance. It is very heavy though when the cruising essentials are stored on board. It's important to bear this in mind. The cockpit is also positioned to be as central as possible to open up more space.

Below decks, the interior is straightforward and functional. There are two to three sleeping cabins depending on what model you choose. The sleeping cabins are generally considered to be functional at best.

It's the standard, go to a cruiser for circumnavigation. This should be the sailboat that you compare everything to!

10. Oyster 56

I've saved possibly the best option for last. The Oyster 56 is highly regarded and considered to be a dream boat for most. The biggest advantage of the Oyster 56 is the fact that it's so flexible and simple to use but the standard of the instruments and interior is absolutely stunning.

There isn't too much else to say because everything is built to an unbelievably high standard. The deck is designed to be small enough to be crewed by two people, but it's sufficiently big enough to cross vast distances quickly and in immense comfort. The systems can be crewed by up to six people, with the ideal number being from two-four.

It's the exact situation below decks as well. A lavish interior is designed to relax you in comfort. There's a lot of space so it feels more like home rather than a boat. Everything you could want is available. The 56 is absolutely fantastic for long distance cruising.

A final thing to mention is that the Oyster 56 wins pretty much anything it competes in. You certainly are buying a quality boat!

Ultimately, the choice of the best sailboat for navigation depends on what experience you are looking for. It's fair to say that each sailboat has their own positives and negatives. You might want to relax in comfort and luxury, or you might want to have a more authentic, manual experience. The important things to consider are the space available below decks, the size of the boat and how easy it is to use and whether the boat meets your needs.

However, if I was to make a recommendation, I would suggest the Beneteau 57. Even though it is one of the most expensive sailboats on the list, it offers a wide variety of applications, excellent build quality and luxury interior makes this an amazing boat to travel in. If you want to travel in style, then this certainly is the boat for you! This is an excellent boat for larger crews, especially six and up.

If the Beneteau 57 isn't your cup of tea, then another excellent recommendation would be the Bavaria 42. This is an excellent option due to the outstanding build quality, quality engineering and functionality. It's perfect for small crew that like to have a functional and minimalist experience but really connect with the sea and the natural surroundings. Just bear in mind that it is a lot smaller than the majority of the sailboats on the list so don't expect to have the same luxurious experience you might have with some others.

Hopefully, you've found the perfect sailboat for you or if not, you've got some inspiration! The main thing is that the boat should add to the enjoyment and experience of the journey, not detract from it. No matter what boat you choose, make sure you enjoy it!

Happy sailing!

I've personally had thousands of questions about sailing and sailboats over the years. As I learn and experience sailing, and the community, I share the answers that work and make sense to me, here on Life of Sailing.

by this author

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13 Best Cruising Sailboats in 2023 & Why They're Better

If you're interested in long-distance exploration at sea, cruising sailboats are a popular choice. The best cruising sailboats are designed to provide comfort, durability, and seaworthiness. From high-performance cruisers with heirloom-quality materials to versatile boats, there's something in this lineup for your skill level and preference. These boats have raised the bar and are set to provide memorable sailing experiences.

The best cruising sailboats are:

Beneteau Oceanis Yacht 54

Jeanneau sun odyssey 490, x-yachts x49, dufour grand large 460, hallberg-rassy 340, tartan 4300, island packet 420, fountaine pajot saona 47, lagoon 450f, bavaria cruiser 46.

One aspect that sets these sailboats apart is their focus on innovation and performance. Let's take a closer look at the 13 best cruising sailboats of 2023 and explore what makes them stand out from the rest.

These cruising sailboats feature spacious interiors, sturdy hulls, and versatile sail configurations.
These sailboats are equipped with navigation and communication systems, as well as additional features such as watermakers, generators, and refrigeration systems.
You can buy these boats for anything between $250,000 and $1.4 million or more.
A cruiser is a type of sailboat that is generally larger and more comfortable than a racing sailboat.

The Oyster 565 is known for its high-quality construction, attention to detail, and luxurious accommodations, as well as its excellent safety features. It provides you with exceptional performance and comfort. Its sleek hull design offers fast, stable sailing, while the spacious, high-quality interior ensures you'll enjoy your time onboard.

The Oyster 565 has a unique feature called the "Oyster Deck Saloon," which provides 360-degree views and adequate natural light in the living space. It also has a unique "Oyster DNA" system, which allows for customization of the boat to suit the owner's preferences.

With its cutting-edge design and performance, the Beneteau Oceanis Yacht 54 lets you sail in style. Its chined hull, twin rudders, and easy handling make it a pleasure to sail, while the spacious, modern interior ensures your comfort on longer voyages.

The Beneteau Oceanis Yacht 54 has a unique feature called the "Dock & Go" system, which allows for easy and precise maneuvering in tight spaces. It also has a unique "Beneteau Smart Sailing" system, which includes a suite of electronic and navigational tools for easy and safe sailing.

The Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 490 is known for its hard chine design, and excellent performance and stability. It offers innovative design and functionality. Its walk-around decks, unique cockpit layout, and high-quality interior make it ideal for cruising in comfort.

The Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 490 has a unique feature called the "Walk-Around Deck," which allows for easy and safe movement around the boat. It also has a unique "Jeanneau Sun Loft" system, which provides a flexible and customizable living space.

The X-Yachts X49 combines performance, luxury, and comfort. It is known for its high-performance hull design, excellent speed and stability. With its fast hull, advanced sailing systems, and plush interior, the X49 is perfect for both racing and cruising.

The X-Yachts X49 has a unique feature called the "X-Yachts Pure X" system, which includes a suite of performance-enhancing features such as a carbon fiber mast and boom, a racing-inspired sail plan, and a deep lead keel.

The Dufour Grand Large 460 provides you with both comfort and performance. It is known for its innovative design, featuring a self-tacking jib and retractable bow thruster for easy handling. Its spacious interior, ergonomic deck layout, and powerful sailing capabilities make it an excellent choice for long-distance cruising.

The Dufour Grand Large 460 has a unique feature called the "Dufour Easy" system, which includes a suite of tools for easy and safe sailing, such as a self-tacking jib and retractable bow thruster. It also has a unique "Dufour Grand Large Lounge" system, which provides a flexible and customizable living space.

Experience easy handling and modern style with the Hanse 458. It is known for its sleek and modern design, self-tacking jib, large swim platform. Its innovative self-tacking jib, efficient deck layout, and comfortable accommodation make it perfect for family cruising.

The Hanse 458 has a unique feature called the "Hanse Easy Sailing" system, which includes a suite of tools for easy and safe sailing, such as a self-tacking jib and retractable bow thruster. It also has a unique "Hanse Individual Cabin Concept" system, which allows for customization of the living space to suit the owner's preferences.

Known for its quality and craftsmanship, the Hallberg-Rassy 340 offers you comfort and performance in a compact package. It is known for its classic design, long waterline, spacious cockpit, and comfortable and practical accommodations. With its stable hull, efficient sailplan, and well-designed interior, it's ideal for long-range cruising on a smaller scale.

The Hallberg-Rassy 340 has a unique feature called the "Hallberg-Rassy Hardtop," which provides protection from the elements and a spacious cockpit area. It also has a unique "Hallberg-Rassy Quality Concept" system, which includes high-quality construction materials and techniques for durability and longevity.

The Tartan 4300 delivers a perfect balance of performance and comfort. It is known for its high-quality construction, cored hull and deck for added strength and durability. Its epoxy-infused hull provides lightweight strength, while the spacious, beautifully crafted interior ensures a luxurious cruising experience.

The Tartan 4300 has a unique feature called the "Tartan Infusion Molding Process," which allows for precise and consistent construction of the hull and deck for added strength and durability. It also has a unique "Tartan Smart Sailing" system, which includes a suite of electronic and navigational tools for easy and safe sailing.

For those who value comfort and classic design, the Island Packet 420 won't disappoint. It is known for its full keel design, excellent stability and seaworthiness. Its spacious, well-appointed interior and solid construction make it a reliable choice for long voyages.

The Island Packet 420 has a unique feature called the "Island Packet Full Foil Keel," which provides excellent stability and seaworthiness. It also has a unique "Island Packet Anchoring System," which includes a powerful windlass and a custom-designed anchor roller for easy and safe anchoring.

The Fountaine Pajot Saona 47 catamaran offers you the perfect combination of speed, stability, and space. Its sleek hulls and spacious, well-designed living areas make it an excellent choice for cruising with friends and family.

The Fountaine Pajot Saona 47 has a unique feature called the "Fountaine Pajot Helmsman's Position," which provides excellent visibility and control of the boat. It also has a unique "Fountaine Pajot Lounge Deck" system, which provides a spacious and comfortable living space.

Cruise in style on the Lagoon 450F, known for its spacious accommodations and excellent performance under sail. With its distinctive flybridge, comfortable cabins, and efficient sailing system, it's ideal for multi-day getaways.

The Lagoon 450F has a unique feature called the "Lagoon Flybridge," which provides excellent visibility and control of the boat. It also has a unique "Lagoon Spacious Cockpit" system, which provides a comfortable and practical living space.

The Bavaria Cruiser 46 is a versatile and stylish cruiser that offers excellent performance and comfort. It is known for its innovative design, featuring a drop-down transom for easy access to the water. Its user-friendly sailing systems, attractive interior, and practical deck layout make it an ideal choice for a wide range of cruising adventures.

The Bavaria Cruiser 46 has a unique feature called the "Bavaria Hybrid Propulsion System," which allows for energy-efficient sailing and propulsion. It also has a unique "Bavaria Smart Storage" system, which provides enough storage space for gear and supplies. Additionally, the Bavaria Cruiser 46 has a unique "Bavaria Vision" design concept, which includes a spacious and comfortable living space with plenty of natural light and ventilation.

Cruising Gear Essentials

Key features to look for

Versatile hull design.

This allows your sailboat to navigate in various conditions, making it ideal for long-distance cruising.

Efficient sail plan

By having a well-designed sail layout, your boat provides better control, handling, and propulsion.

High-quality construction

Top-quality materials and craftsmanship not only increase the boat's durability, but also enhance its performance.

Comfortable accommodations

When you spend extended periods at sea, you want your sailboat to feel like home, with adequate living space and modern amenities. For an extended sailing trip, you are going to need these 41 sailboat cruising essentials .

How they improve sailing experience

Easier boat handling.

Advanced rigging systems, self-tacking jibs, and other innovative technologies make it easier for you to manage your boat, allowing for more time spent enjoying the sea.

Increased safety

State-of-the-art navigation equipment and weather forecasting systems help you anticipate environmental changes, ensuring a safe voyage.

Sustainable power options

Many sailboats in 2023 come with solar panels, hydro generators, or hybrid propulsion options, reducing your environmental impact and providing more sustainable choices while out at sea.

Integrated connectivity

These boats boast digital systems that allow you to stay connected, monitor your journey, and update your friends and family with your adventures.

Their advantages over others

Better performance.

These boats have been designed with speed, stability, and maneuverability in mind, ensuring top-notch sailing experiences.

Longevity and value

Since they're built with high-quality materials and expert craftsmanship, these boats are certain to last, making them a wise investment.

Customization options

Many of these sailboats offer customizable features, allowing you to tailor the boat to your specific needs and preferences.

Award-winning designs

Several of these boats have received prestigious awards for their innovative features and performance, making them the ultimate cruising sailboats for any passionate sailor.

The Island Packet 420 and Lagoon 450F are the two most popular cruising sailboats known for their comfort, seaworthiness, and versatility.

The Island Packet 420 is a well-regarded cruising sailboat that has a loyal following. It is known for its spacious interior, comfortable accommodations, and good sailing performance.

The Island Packet 420 features a full keel and a cutter rig, which makes it a stable and seaworthy vessel that can handle a variety of weather conditions. The sailboat has a large master cabin, a well-equipped galley, and a comfortable salon area, making it a popular choice for those who enjoy extended periods of time at sea.

The Lagoon 450F is a popular choice for those who want to explore the world by boat. It is known for its spacious interior, stable platform, and good sailing performance.

The Lagoon 450F features a catamaran hull design, which provides a stable and comfortable platform that is ideal for long-distance cruising. The sailboat has a spacious cockpit, multiple sleeping quarters, and a well-equipped galley, making it a popular choice for those who want to travel with family or friends.

The best size cruising sailboat

The best size cruising sailboat is in the range of 40 to 50 feet. Sailboats in this size range are large enough to provide comfortable accommodations for an extended period of time at sea, yet small enough to be easily handled by a small crew or even single-handed.

Sailboats that are too small may lack the necessary amenities and space for long-distance cruising, while sailboats that are too large may be difficult to handle and require a larger crew. Ultimately, the best size cruising sailboat will depend on individual preferences, needs, and intended use, and it's important to consider factors such as comfort, safety, and ease of handling when choosing a cruising sailboat.

The safest cruising sailboat

Hallberg-Rassy 340, and Island Packet 420 are considered among the safest cruising sailboats. These sailboats are known for their sturdy construction, well-designed hulls, and reliable systems. They are also known for their ability to handle a variety of weather conditions and their comfortable accommodations. However, safety can also depend on the boat maintenance, and the skill and experience of the crew.

You may also like, 41 sailboat cruising essentials for long trips.

In this post I list the items you are unlikely to have if you have never done bluewater or long-term cruising before. There are some essential safety product and …

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How Far Can a Sailboat Travel in a Day: Guide to Know

Sailing has been an age-old method of transportation and exploration, harnessing the power of the wind to navigate vast oceans and waterways. Sailboats, with their elegant sails and graceful maneuvers, have captured the imaginations of seafarers and adventurers throughout history.

But when it comes to the distance a sailboat can cover in a day, several factors come into play. The size and type of sailboat, prevailing wind conditions, crew experience, and the vessel’s design and condition all play significant roles in determining its daily range.

In this article, we will delve into the key elements that influence a sailboat’s daily travel distance. Whether you’re an avid sailor, a curious observer, or simply someone who appreciates the allure of the sea, join us as we unravel the mysteries of how far a sailboat can journey within the span of a single day.

Understanding Sailboat Speed and Performance

Sailboat speed and performance are influenced by several key factors that govern the vessel’s propulsion and maneuverability. Understanding these factors is essential in comprehending how far a sailboat can travel in a day.

At the core of sailboat propulsion is the wind, which fills the sails and generates forward motion. The angle and intensity of the wind, combined with the sail configuration, determine the force exerted on the sails, propelling the boat through the water. By skillfully adjusting the sail trim and angle in response to wind changes, sailors can optimize their boat’s speed and efficiency.

Hull design also plays a significant role in a sailboat’s speed potential. The shape, weight distribution, and hydrodynamic characteristics of the hull impact how the boat moves through the water. One concept that is particularly relevant is hull speed, which refers to the maximum speed a displacement hull can attain before encountering significant resistance. Hull speed is influenced by the boat’s length and is a fundamental consideration when evaluating a sailboat’s speed capabilities.

Different types of sailboats offer varying degrees of speed and performance. Cruising boats, designed for leisurely journeys and comfort, prioritize stability and accommodation over sheer speed. Racing sailboats, on the other hand, are built with speed in mind, featuring sleek hulls, lightweight materials, and specialized rigging. Performance-oriented vessels combine the best of both worlds, offering a balance between comfort and speed potential.

Factors such as sail area, keel design, and weight distribution can differ among sailboat types, resulting in variations in their speed and performance characteristics. Ultimately, the choice of sailboat depends on the individual’s preferences, whether they seek the thrill of racing or the leisurely exploration of distant shores.

By understanding the principles of sailboat propulsion, the concept of hull speed, and the influence of design on performance, sailors can better assess the speed potential of their sailboat and determine how far they can reasonably expect to travel within a day.

What are the primary factors that affect how far a sailboat can travel in a day?

Several factors influence how far a sailboat can travel in a day. Understanding these factors is essential for estimating the daily distance a sailboat can cover:

Wind Conditions: The speed, direction, and consistency of the wind have a significant impact on a sailboat’s speed. A strong and steady tailwind can propel the boat swiftly, while a headwind may require tacking or altering the course to maintain progress. Crosswinds can provide a combination of speed and maneuverability. It’s important to consider wind conditions throughout the day, as they can change and affect the overall distance covered.
Sea State: The state of the sea, including wave height, chop, and swell, can impact a sailboat’s speed and comfort. Rough or choppy seas can slow down the boat and make sailing more challenging. Conversely, calm waters allow for smoother and more efficient sailing, enabling the boat to maintain higher speeds.
Currents: Ocean currents can either assist or hinder a sailboat’s progress. A favorable current can provide an additional boost to the boat’s speed, while an opposing current can create resistance and reduce speed. Understanding the timing and direction of currents is important for planning the daily sailboat route and estimating distance.
Vessel Efficiency: The efficiency of the sailboat itself plays a crucial role in its daily travel distance. Factors such as the boat’s size, weight, hull design, sail area, and rigging impact its performance. Lighter boats with sleek hull designs tend to be more responsive to wind and require less energy to move through the water. Sailboats with larger sail areas can harness more wind power, potentially allowing for higher speeds.
Crew Skill and Experience: The skill and experience of the crew can greatly influence the boat’s performance and daily distance covered. A knowledgeable and experienced crew understands how to trim the sails, optimize sail shape, adjust rigging, and make tactical decisions to maximize speed and efficiency. Their ability to adapt to changing wind and sea conditions and their proficiency in navigation can contribute to covering more distance in a day.

By considering these factors – wind conditions, sea state, currents, vessel efficiency, and crew skill – sailors can make informed estimations of how far a sailboat can travel in a day. It is important to assess these factors before setting sail to plan the route and manage expectations accordingly.

The combination of factors such as wind direction, wind strength, boat size, sail area, rigging, and crew skill all contribute to a sailboat’s ability to maintain a desired course and maximize speed. By understanding and effectively utilizing these factors, sailors can optimize their sailboat’s performance and cover more distance in a day.

Average daily distances that sailboats can cover under typical conditions.

The average daily distances that sailboats can cover under typical conditions can vary depending on several factors, including wind conditions, boat size, sail area, and crew experience. Here is a general range of average daily distances:

Cruising Sailboats: On a typical day of cruising, sailboats can cover an average distance of 30 to 60 nautical miles (34 to 69 statute miles or 55 to 111 kilometers) when sailing downwind or on a reach. However, when sailing upwind (close-hauled), the average distance covered may be reduced to 20 to 40 nautical miles (23 to 46 statute miles or 37 to 74 kilometers) due to the need for tacking.
Racing Sailboats: Racing sailboats, designed for speed and performance, can cover greater distances in a day under favorable wind conditions. These boats often have larger sail areas, sleek hull designs, and experienced crews. In optimal conditions, racing sailboats can cover an average distance of 80 to 120 nautical miles (92 to 138 statute miles or 148 to 222 kilometers) or even more.

It’s important to note that these are general estimates, and actual daily distances can vary widely depending on specific circumstances. Factors such as wind strength and direction, sea state, current, and the objectives of the sailing trip or race can all impact the distance covered in a day. Additionally, factors such as rest breaks, navigation challenges, and other logistical considerations may also influence the actual daily distance covered by a sailboat.

Real-life sailing experiences can provide examples of the varying distances achieved within a 24-hour period. For instance, during a race, sailboats with favorable wind conditions and experienced crews have been known to cover distances of over 200 nautical miles (230 statute miles or 370 kilometers) within a day. On the other hand, in challenging conditions with adverse winds or unfavorable currents, sailboats may only cover shorter distances, such as 10 to 20 nautical miles (12 to 23 statute miles or 19 to 37 kilometers).

It’s important to remember that every sailing trip is unique, and the distances achieved within a 24-hour period can vary significantly based on the factors mentioned above. Sailors must adapt to the prevailing conditions, make informed decisions, and continuously adjust their sails and course to optimize their speed and progress on the water.

5 tips and strategies for maximizing the distance a sailboat can travel in a day

To maximize the distance a sailboat can travel in a day, sailors can employ various strategies and techniques. Here are some tips to consider:

Optimize Sail Trim: Properly trim the sails to match the wind conditions. Adjust the angle and tension of the sails to achieve the most efficient airflow and maximize boat speed. Experiment with different sail configurations to find the optimal setup for different wind strengths and directions.
Understand Wind Patterns and Tides: Study wind patterns in the area you’re sailing and utilize this knowledge to plan your route. Take advantage of prevailing winds or thermal breezes that occur during specific times of the day. Additionally, consider the influence of tides and currents, and plan your departure and arrival times to coincide with favorable tidal flows.
Plan Routes Effectively: Use navigational tools and resources to plan the most efficient route. Consider wind forecasts, weather patterns, and potential obstacles such as reefs or shallows. Plot your course to take advantage of wind shifts and avoid unnecessary detours, enabling you to cover more distance in less time.
Efficient Navigation Techniques: Stay informed about weather forecasts and updates to make informed decisions while underway. Monitor wind shifts and adjust your course and sail trim accordingly. Keep an eye on potential changes in wind direction and adjust your route to take advantage of favorable shifts. Utilize navigation aids, such as GPS or chart plotters, to maintain an accurate course and optimize efficiency.
Maintain the Vessel: A well-maintained sailboat performs better and can maximize the distance traveled. Keep the hull clean to reduce drag, regularly inspect and maintain sails and rigging, and ensure all equipment is in good working condition. Regular maintenance and inspections help identify and address any potential issues that could hinder performance.

By implementing these strategies, sailors can enhance their sailboat’s performance and increase the distance traveled in a day. Efficient sail trim, understanding wind patterns, planning routes effectively, and maintaining the vessel all contribute to maximizing the boat’s speed and progress on the water. Remember to adapt these strategies to the specific conditions and characteristics of your sailboat for the best results.

Watch Sailing alone across an ocean on a 30ft sailboat | Video

Can a sailboat travel faster than its hull speed?

No, a sailboat cannot typically exceed its hull speed. Hull speed is the theoretical maximum speed a boat can achieve based on its waterline length. Beyond this speed, the boat experiences increased resistance, limiting its ability to go faster.

Can a sailboat travel long distances in light winds?

While it is possible for a sailboat to travel in light winds, the speed and distance covered may be significantly reduced. Light winds require careful sail trimming and maneuvering techniques to maintain forward motion.

Can a sailboat travel faster with stronger winds?

Yes, sailboats can achieve higher speeds with stronger winds. As wind strength increases, the sails can capture more energy, resulting in increased boat speed. However, it’s important to sail within the boat’s safe and comfortable operating limits.

Are there any record-breaking examples of sailboats covering impressive distances in a day?

Yes, there have been exceptional instances where experienced sailors and high-performance sailboats have covered impressive distances in a single day. For example, during certain offshore racing events, sailboats have achieved distances exceeding 400 nautical miles within 24 hours, thanks to favorable wind and weather conditions.

In conclusion, the distance a sailboat can travel in a day is influenced by various factors such as wind conditions, vessel design, sail trim, and crew skill. Wind direction and strength play a significant role in maintaining a desired course and maximizing speed. The size of the boat, sail area, and rigging also impact its performance. Additionally, the skill and experience of the crew in effectively harnessing the wind are crucial in achieving optimal speed and efficiency.

While average daily distances can provide a general range, it’s important to note that real-life sailing experiences can deviate significantly from these averages due to factors like light or strong winds, currents, and specific sailboat characteristics. Every sailing journey is unique, and the distances covered can vary greatly depending on the conditions encountered.

Sailing offers a unique and captivating experience, where the beauty of nature and the skill of the sailor merge in perfect harmony. It’s not solely about covering vast distances but also about embracing the serenity, adventure, and freedom that sailing provides. The interaction between wind and water creates a magical environment where sailboats can embark on unforgettable journeys.

Whether you’re sailing for leisure, exploration, or competitive pursuits, the world of sailing awaits you. Embrace the joy of being on the water, immerse yourself in the tranquility of the sea, and appreciate the wonders of harnessing the wind to propel your sailboat. So set sail, explore new horizons, and let the wind carry you to new adventures on your sailing journey.

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Sailing across the seas: how many miles can a sailboat travel in a day.

Sailing across the seas has been a dream of adventurers, explorers, and sailors for centuries. There is something undeniably alluring about the idea of setting out into the open water, propelled by the wind, and leaving the cares of the world behind. For many sailors, the question of how many miles can a sailboat travel in a day is both practical and romantic.

The distance a sailboat can cover in a day depends on many factors, including wind speed and direction, sea state and currents, the type of sailboat and its capabilities, and the skill and experience of the crew. While there are no hard and fast rules for calculating a sailboat’s daily distance, understanding these factors can help sailors make informed decisions about trip planning, sail selection, and navigation.

In this article, we will explore the question of how many miles a sailboat can travel in a day. We will look at the factors that affect a sailboat’s daily distance, discuss methods for calculating it, and explore the limits of a sailboat’s speed and range. We will also offer tips and tricks for maximizing the distance you can cover in a day and provide insights for aspiring sailors who want to set out on their own adventure.

Understanding the Factors

To understand how many miles a sailboat can travel in a day, it’s important to consider the various factors that can affect a sailboat’s daily distance. These include wind speed and direction, sea state and currents, the type of sailboat and its capabilities, and the skill and experience of the crew.

Wind speed and direction are perhaps the most critical factors in determining how far a sailboat can travel in a day. Sailboats are powered by the wind, and the speed and direction of the wind can make a significant difference in how fast a sailboat can go. A sailboat can typically sail at a speed equal to the true wind speed. The wind direction can also affect a sailboat’s speed, as sailing against the wind (called “beating” or “tacking”) is slower than sailing with the wind (called “running” or “reaching”).

Sea state and currents can also play a role in a sailboat’s daily distance. The state of the sea can affect the speed and stability of a sailboat, especially in rough or choppy conditions. Currents can also affect a sailboat’s speed and direction, and sailors must take them into account when plotting their course.

The type of sailboat and its capabilities are also important factors in determining how many miles a sailboat can travel in a day. Different types of sailboats have different speeds and capabilities, and sailors must consider these when planning their trips. For example, a small dinghy will typically sail at a slower speed than a larger yacht, and a sailboat designed for racing will be faster than one designed for cruising.

Finally, the skill and experience of the crew can make a significant difference in a sailboat’s daily distance. Experienced sailors are better equipped to handle changing conditions, adjust the sail plan for maximum speed, and navigate effectively. Novice sailors may need to learn these skills before attempting longer trips.

In the next section, we will discuss methods for calculating a sailboat’s daily distance, taking these factors into account.

Calculating a Sailboat’s Daily Distance

Calculating how many miles a sailboat can travel in a day can be a complex process, as it involves taking into account a variety of factors. However, there are several methods that sailors can use to estimate their daily distance.

One of the most common ways to measure a sailboat’s speed is with a knotmeter, which measures the speed of the boat through the water. The knotmeter gives the speed in knots, which is equivalent to nautical miles per hour. However, this measurement only gives the speed of the boat relative to the water, and not the distance traveled over ground.

To estimate the distance traveled over ground, sailors must adjust for leeway and current. Leeway is the sideways drift of the sailboat caused by the wind, while current is the movement of water caused by tides, waves, and other factors. These factors can cause a sailboat to travel a shorter or longer distance over ground than through the water, depending on the direction of the wind and current.

Sailors can estimate their distance traveled over ground by using a GPS device. GPS can provide accurate speed and position information, which can be used to calculate the distance traveled. Sailors can also use navigation tools such as charts and compasses to plot their course and estimate their distance.

It’s worth noting that the daily distance a sailboat can travel is not constant, as it depends on the changing conditions of wind, sea state, and currents. Sailors must be prepared to adjust their course and sail plan to maximize their speed and efficiency.

In the next section, we will explore the limits of a sailboat’s speed and range and discuss how sailors can maximize their daily distance.

Exploring the Limits of a Sailboat’s Speed and Range

Every sailboat has its own limits in terms of speed and range. The maximum speed of a sailboat depends on factors such as the sail area, hull shape, and weight. The range of a sailboat depends on factors such as the size of the fuel tank, the capacity of the water tanks, and the amount of food and supplies on board.

In general, sailboats can travel at speeds ranging from 4 to 8 knots, depending on the wind and sea conditions. However, some sailboats are capable of higher speeds, especially in racing conditions. The fastest sailboats in the world, such as hydrofoils and multihulls, can reach speeds of up to 50 knots.

The range of a sailboat varies widely depending on the size and type of the boat, as well as the conditions of the trip. A sailboat’s range can be increased by carrying extra fuel and water, using renewable energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines, and conserving resources by minimizing power usage and reducing waste.

To maximize their daily distance, sailors must take into account the limits of their sailboat’s speed and range, as well as the changing conditions of wind and sea. This may involve adjusting their sail plan, navigating around obstacles such as land masses and shipping lanes, and planning their route to take advantage of favorable winds and currents.

Sailors can also use a variety of techniques to increase their speed and efficiency. These include adjusting the angle of the sails, trimming the sails to reduce drag, and using a spinnaker or other specialized sail to catch more wind. Additionally, sailors can use techniques such as heaving to and reefing the sails to maintain control in high winds or heavy seas.

In the next section, we will provide tips and insights for sailors who want to set out on their own adventure and explore the limits of their sailboat’s speed and range.

How many miles can a sailboat travel in a day?

Assuming a sailboat sails all 24 hours, the number of miles a sailboat can travel in a day can be calculated by multiplying its average cruising speed by 24. Racing sailboats average around 15 knots per hour. Cruising sailboats average 4-6 knots per hour.

Theoretically, in consistent and perfect conditions, a racing sailboat can travel 360 nautical miles in a day . Under the same theoretical conditions, a cruising sailboat can expect to travel between 96-144 nautical miles in a day .

A nautical mile is equal to 1.15 land miles. by So a racing sailboat can travel 414 “land” miles in a day. A cruising sailboat can travel 110-165 “land” miles per day.

Tips for Maximizing Your Daily Distance

Whether you are a seasoned sailor or just starting out, there are a few key tips that can help you maximize your sailboat’s daily distance.

Sailboat traveling fast through a shipping channel.

Monitor wind and weather conditions: Keep an eye on the forecast and adjust your sail plan accordingly. Sails should be trimmed to catch the wind at the right angle, and reefed in strong winds to reduce the risk of capsizing or losing control. We recommend Predict Wind for wind and weather forecasting.

Use navigation tools: Navigation tools such as GPS devices, charts, and compasses can help you plot your course and estimate your distance traveled. Keep track of your position and course to ensure that you stay on track and avoid hazards such as rocks, shoals, and shipping lanes.
Optimize your sail plan: Experiment with different sail configurations to find the one that works best for your boat and the conditions. Use a spinnaker or other specialized sail to catch more wind when sailing downwind, and adjust the angle of the sails to maintain the right balance of speed and control.
Practice good seamanship: Make sure your boat is well-maintained and equipped with the necessary safety gear, including life jackets, flares, and a first aid kit. Follow best practices for sailing, such as maintaining a lookout, avoiding collisions, and observing the rules of the road.
Plan your route: Plan your route to take advantage of favorable winds and currents, and avoid obstacles such as land masses and shipping lanes. Keep in mind the range of your boat and plan for stops to refuel and restock on supplies.

By following these tips, you can maximize your sailboat’s daily distance and enjoy a safe and rewarding sailing adventure. Remember that sailing is both an art and a science and that there is always more to learn about the factors that influence a sailboat’s speed and range. With practice and experience, you can become a skilled and confident sailor and explore the seas with confidence.

In conclusion, the distance a sailboat can travel in a day depends on a variety of factors, including wind and sea conditions, the size and type of the boat, and the skills and experience of the crew. By understanding these factors and using the right techniques, sailors can maximize their daily distance and enjoy a safe and rewarding sailing adventure.

Whether you are a novice sailor or an experienced skipper, it is important to remember that sailing is a dynamic and constantly changing activity. Wind and sea conditions can vary from hour to hour, and sailors must be prepared to adjust their sail plan and navigate around obstacles as needed.

By following the tips and best practices outlined in this article, you can increase your sailboat’s speed and range, and explore the seas with confidence and skill. Remember to always prioritize safety, maintain your boat and equipment, and practice good seamanship at all times.

We hope that this article has provided you with valuable insights and inspiration for your next sailing adventure. Fair winds and following seas!

Learn more about the roots of sailing and view some of our sailing adventures at Outward Spaces.

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Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway: everything you need to know

May 30, 2022

Peter Nielsen brings you this guide to cruising the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), or as it is more widely known, 'The Ditch'

Perhaps you’ve cruised the Caribbean and fancy heading up the east coast of the United States to sample the fine cruising grounds of the Chesapeake Bay or New England. Or perhaps you’re a Canadian sailor itching to escape the brutal northern winter. Either way, you will become acquainted with the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).

The ICW – or ‘The Ditch’, as it is affectionately known by many – stretches 1,088 miles (statute, not nautical) from Mile Marker 1 in Norfolk, Virginia, to its end point in Key West. It is part of a 3,000-mile series of interconnected waterways that can take you all the way from Virginia to Texas.

On the east coast, the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway is a busy highway in the autumn and spring. The snowbirds flock south in the fall, gathering on the Chesapeake to head south after the Annapolis Boat Show in October and get to Florida as the hurricane season ends in late November. In the spring, there’s a procession of boats heading back to the Chesapeake or downeast to Maine.

American sailors have something of a love-hate relationship with the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. On the one hand they deplore the need to motor the best part of 1,000 miles when they could be sailing; on the other, they welcome the many opportunities to duck into shelter from threatening weather. The majority of cruisers taking the offshore option will, for instance, happily nip into the ICW to avoid rounding the notorious Cape Hatteras.

Before I actually went down the ICW for the first time, I did not think of it as a cruising destination in its own right. ‘The Ditch’ sounded far from appealing to this deepwater sailor. Yet over the course of three forays down various parts of the waterway, I began to enjoy it for its own sake. Yes, you will be plugging along under power for many miles, but you will also pass through some beautiful scenery and visit parts of the country that typical tourists would never get to see.

Sailing the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway

You’ll also get to sail some, notably on the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, though there are many other places where you can unroll the genoa to get a break from the engine. My favourite parts are the northern section, from Norfolk, Virginia, down to Beaufort, North Carolina, and farther south to Charleston, South Carolina.

On my first excursion I motored slowly down the historic, 22-mile-long Dismal Swamp Canal, dug by slave labour in the late 18th century as a trade route. Its inky black water, infused with tannin from the swamp vegetation, left a brown moustache on our bow. Our spreaders grazed overhanging branches and our 6ft 3in keel bounced over the shallows.

It was a unique experience, followed by a gorgeous cruise along a winding tree-lined river to a welcoming town called Belhaven, where we tied up to the free dock and a friendly local drove us to the supermarket. From there, we set sail at first light in a solid blow, bouncing across a choppy Albemarle Sound, and made 80 miles before dark. Such are the contrasts of the ICW.

There are some pretty towns and cities that warrant a few days’ exploration, for anyone not in delivery mode. Some are famous, some you’ve likely not heard of.

Lighthouse and pier at Manteo, North Carolina. Photo: Matt Claiborne/Alamy

In Norfolk, Virginia, you can marvel at the sight of a good chunk of the US Navy lined up almost gunwale to gunwale along the riverbank; deceptively sleepy Oriental, North Carolina, is home to two good boatyards; while the two Beauforts, ‘Bowfort’ in North Carolina and ‘Bewfort’ in South Carolina, are charming stopovers.

Charleston, also in South Carolina, is an almost mandatory stop, as is Savannah in Georgia. Many cruisers get as far as St Augustine and decide to stop there for a spell. To me, it’s the best town on Florida’s east coast.

As you motor farther south, things get busy. Above the Keys, the Florida coast lacks the charm of the Carolinas or Georgia, and so does the ICW. It’s here that, if there’s a northerly component to the wind, the temptation to hop outside (but stay west of the Gulf Stream) and make some fast miles away from bridges and currents becomes overpowering.

Sure, there are a couple of nice towns to stop at for a while – Vero Beach and Stuart, for example, and it would be a shame to steam past Cape Canaveral without a tour of the space centre – but generally speaking it’s a dull run, and the farther south you go, the more congested the waterway becomes.

Down around Fort Pierce, a good many sailing crews split off and head across to the Bahamas, while others head down as far as Fort Lauderdale. However, I’d recommend going outside well before you get too far south, or at least do not travel on a weekend; as it’s here that the boat traffic gets hellish.

The Intracoastal Waterway is spanned by 160 bridges. Photo: Peter Neilsen

The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway can become chockablock with all manner of overpowered and under-piloted watercraft, a celebration of horsepower and inebriation, all zooming around willy-nilly. I stayed in the waterway a little too long last year, and being trapped in tight quarters amid so many powerboats was downright frightening at times.

There’s a bridge with only 56ft clearance just before you get to Miami, so most sailing boats have to go into the Atlantic at Fort Lauderdale and back into Miami at Government Cut.

For many, Miami marks the end of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway; it’s an easy staging point for the Bahamas. The ICW continues down to the Florida Keys and then up and around the Gulf of Mexico, but most east coast cruisers, and most foreign vessels, either break off and head towards the western Caribbean, or go to the Bahamas and perhaps south to the Eastern Caribbean.

One of the first things the bluewater sailor will notice about the ICW is the sheer number of bridges. There are some 160 between Hampton and Miami. Most of them are fixed bridges, all built to a vertical clearance of 65ft (20m) above the high-water mark. Supposedly built to that height, anyway.

Mind the gap

During my foray down part of the Florida ICW on a catamaran with a 63ft (19.2m) air draught, we lost the masthead wind transducer on one bridge and nervously watched the VHF antenna scraping the underneath of several more. This is nerve-wracking if you have some current with you and are effectively committed, watching the height boards at the centre span and hoping they aren’t lying.

Entrance to the ICW at Fort Pierce, Florida. Photo: Stephen Wood/Alamy

Then there are the opening bridges, which relieve you of height concerns but offer some challenges of their own. Some are bascule bridges, others have a span swinging sideways to open the path for water traffic, others have lifting spans. The latter are usually found in populated areas, or where topography precludes a fixed bridge.

Some will open on demand, the etiquette for which involves a call on Ch13 or Ch9 and a usually pleasant interaction with the bridgekeeper. Others open to a timetable, usually on the half hour. This leads to plenty of strategising, as you either hurry to get to the next bridge in time to avoid milling around with a bunch of other boats waiting for the next opening, or slow down so you don’t get there too soon. What’s more, many of the metropolitan bridges don’t open at all during morning and evening rush hours. Diligent study of bridge locations and timetables will ease your passage along the ICW.

The further south you get, the more bridges you will encounter, peaking in heavily populated southern Florida. The only three locks you’ll encounter are all in Virginia, and they’re easy enough to negotiate.

Overnighting

Depending on your draught, there are plenty of places to anchor for the night along the ICW, and no shortage of town docks and marinas, though these often fill up quickly from mid-October to December and April through May.

ICW at Fort Lauderdale. Photo: Patrick Lynch/Alamy

I’ve stayed for free, or nearly so, at docks in small but welcoming towns along the waterway, and enjoyed hot showers and restaurant meals in marinas, but most of all I have enjoyed the many lovely anchorages I’ve discovered.

Often, an overnight stop is as easy as pulling a few boat lengths off the channel, depth permitting, and dropping the hook. The various guides to the ICW will point out the best spots. One October we pulled over to a tiny dock on the Dismal Swamp Canal and shivered in our blankets as the temperature dropped close to freezing on the stillest of nights; next day we were in shorts and T-shirts again.

Another time, just north of St Augustine in Florida, we sat on deck with gin and tonics and watched an hours-long lightning show play out in the clouds, happy not to be underneath it. And on one occasion, anchored in a cut leading out into the Atlantic, I paced the deck nervously as the wind pushed the boat one way and the current another, the anchor chain stretching bar-taut astern. In some places you may want to double up on your anchors, or drop a kellett from the bow to make sure your anchor chain doesn’t foul your keel or running gear.

I also recall sitting out a late November north-easterly in Beaufort, North Carolina, where the boat heeled in her berth to 50-knot gusts while we sat in a bar eating boiled oysters, feeling relieved to be in a marina.

Beaufort, South Carolina. Among the best parts of the ICW are the 200 miles north of here. Photo: John Wollwerth/Alamy

Luckily, such blows are well forecast and there’s really no excuse for being caught out in one. They also remind you why you’re in the ICW instead of out at sea at that time of year. During that same passage south, we left Morehead City, North Carolina, bound for Charleston, only to catch a forecast that made us duck back into the ICW at Wrightsville Beach. That night, snug at anchor, we listened to the wind howling in the rigging while 20 miles offshore, about where we’d have been, a new Beneteau 50 was dismasted and its crew rescued by helicopter.

Navigating the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway

Make no mistake, the ICW is shallow. The US Army Corps of Engineers tries to maintain the depth to 9ft (2.7m), but given the nature of the waterway, with its often strong currents, things aren’t always the way they’re supposed to be. I’ve run aground several times, but only once with any damage. On the other hand, some friends went the length of the waterway without a functioning depth sounder and never once touched bottom.

I used Navionics charts on my iPad on each of my ICW trips and never had any issues. Although some commercial traffic does run at night, it would be foolhardy for us sailors to do the same. It would be all too easy to misjudge a turn and end up with your keel stuck in the mud.

Draw bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway at Great Bridge, Chesapeake, Virginia. Photo: Cindy Hopkins/Alamy

The navigation marks are all well kept, and follow American red-right-returning protocol, return being southbound on the east coast.

Channel markers can become confusing where channels from seaward intersect with the ICW, so there’s a simple system of reflective yellow squares and triangles superimposed on the nav aids; leave the triangles to starboard, the squares to port. If the nav aids don’t have the yellow marks, you’ve left the ICW.

Dealing with traffic

At least until you get to the chaos of south Florida, boat traffic on the waterway is easy enough to deal with. Faster boats wanting to pass should hail you via VHF. If you’re feeling generous you can slow down to let them pass faster, which is sensible, for you don’t know what’s coming your way around the next bend.

We sailors are slower than most other traffic, so we get passed often. Most powerboaters will slow down as they pass so as not to ‘wake’ you. There are some exceptions, notably big sport fishing boats with professional crews who delight in steaming past at full speed.

It can get crowded at bridges, so my advice is to hang back and let the nimbler powerboats go first.

Planning an Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway passage

There is lots of literature about the ICW, most of it hard pilotage advice, which is as it should be. If you want some entertaining reading, try The Boy, Me and the Cat , by Henry Plummer, a fun tale of a cruise up the ICW in a small catboat in 1912.

Otherwise, here are some useful books and websites:

The Intracoastal Waterway, Norfolk to Miami – The Complete Cockpit Cruising Guide , by Bill Moeller/John Kettlewell. Waterway Guide Atlantic ICW , by Waterway Guide Media (updated annually). 2021 ICW Cruising Guide , by Bob423.

Many cruisers swear by Bob423’s frequently updated online guides and paperback books. Bob has travelled the ICW for many years and few know it better. His blog is at bobicw.blogspot.com

You’ll spend a lot of time obsessing about bridges and their opening times; the Waterway Guide website and Bob423’s blog are good sources of up-to-date info.

On my ICW excursions, I have exclusively used Navionics charts on iPad and phone, with C-Map charts on the plotter as a backup. I have been happy with the accuracy and functionality of the Navionics charts. Many cruisers also swear by Aquamaps.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

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How Far You Can Sail In A Day: Calculating Speed And Distance

A sailboat can travel 144 nautical miles in 24 hours with an average cruising speed of 6 knots, which is realistic for a 35-45-foot sailboat. If the average speed is reduced to 5 knots, you will cover 120 nautical miles in the same timeframe.

In this article, you’ll discover how many nautical miles you can sail at any time based on your average boat speed. You’ll also learn how to calculate boat speed and examine factors affecting your sailing journey.

UPDATE: I have included a Sailing Distance Calculator and a Hull Speed Calculator for your convenience .

How to calculate the average distance in relation to speed and time

If you are familiar with your boat and know your average cruising speed, it is easy to calculate how far you can sail at any time.

Multiply your average speed in knots with time in hours; the result will show the distance covered in nautical miles. Remember that when calculating your distance, you want to use your speed toward your destination, not your speed over the ground, especially when you are sailing angles.

This term is VMC or VMG-C: Velocity Made Good on the Course.

VMG indicates the speed of your vessel directly towards or away from the wind . VMC indicates the speed of your vessel directly toward your destination .

Your average speed toward your destination “VMC ” and speed over ground “SOG ” will only be the same when you sail directly toward your target. Most modern sailing instruments and chart plotters can show your VMC if you have plotted a route to your destination and calculate your estimated time of arrival, or ETA, based on this number.

How far you can sail in a day, half a day, and 8 hours

I made a table that shows you how far you can sail in 8, 12, and 24 hours based on average cruising speed:

Sailing Distance Calculator

Distance (NM) = Speed (Kt) x Time (Hrs)

Useful Terms

VMG – Velocity Made Good VMC – Velocity Made Good on the Course SOG – Speed Over Ground SOW – Speed Over Water LOA – Length Overall LWL – Loaded Waterline Length NM – Nautical Mile Kt – Knots Clicking this box will take you to The Sailors Guide To Nautical Terms.

How to determine your average sailing speed

If you are new to sailing and unfamiliar with your sailboat, you first want to determine what speed you can expect to sail. The best way to determine your average cruising speed is by getting to know your boat and how it performs in different weather conditions at different points of sail.

Factors Affecting Sailing Speed

While calculating the average sailing distance of a boat, it’s crucial to understand that sailing speed depends on various factors. For example, your speed will be affected when you are beating into the wind or a current.

And you don’t always want to push your boat to its limit to reach your top speed. In many situations, you may want to bear off your course to reduce the stress on the vessel, crew, and yourself. Doing so will reduce your average speed towards your destination.

There are several things that will affect your speed at sea, and I’ve listed the major ones here:

Hull length: The longer the boat, the higher the potential maximum hull speed is because of the increased water length. Larger boats typically carry larger sails, which also increase their speed potential.
Sail area: The sail surface area affects the boat’s speed. Larger sail areas catch more wind, resulting in higher speeds. However, larger sails can also make it more challenging to manage the boat, especially in strong winds. The sails rely on their shape to drive the vessel forward, and the shape of a sail will change as they get older, making them less effective. Learn more about types of sails here .
Tide and currents: Sailing with the tide and using currents to your advantage will positively impact your sailing speed. Sailing into it, or beating as we call it in the sailing world, will reduce your speed.
Weather conditions: The wind’s strength and direction are critical in determining your boat’s speed. Light winds may slow your progress, while strong winds can make for faster sailing or lead to challenging conditions that require you to reduce speed for safety. You also have to consider your point of sail and the wind speed affecting you .
Crew experience: A skilled crew can efficiently trim sails and navigate, maximizing the boat’s performance, which translates to more nautical miles covered per day. Some vessels are even easy to sail effectively solo if the skipper knows what he is doing. However, most cruisers would rather be chasing a comfortable ride than the vessel’s maximum potential.
Boat condition: A well-maintained boat with a clean hull, good sails, and solid rigging will perform much better and ultimately cover more distance than a neglected vessel. You’ll also have more confidence in a well-kept boat when you get to the point where you are pushing yourself and your vessel toward your limits.

When you know your boat and its behavior in the water, you can estimate the average speed by doing simple calculations.

How fast do sailboats go? Maximum hull speed explained

Most cruising sailboats (except for catamarans, trimarans, and some light racing boats) are usually displacement boats. This basically means that the boat is sailing through the water instead of surfing on top of it.

A displacement sailboat’s hull speed is the speed your boat has achieved when its created wave has the same length as the vessel’s loaded waterline length (LWL).

Many boats can exceed their hull speed, but the formula below will give us a decent number as a reference to determine a realistic cruising speed. I made a calculator to make it easier for you.

Hull Speed Calculator

Hull Speed = 1.34 * √Load Waterline Length (LWL “ft”)

LWL “ft”:

Hull Speed:

We will use my sailboat “Ellidah’s” numbers in this example. She is 41 feet overall, but the loaded waterline length (the part of the hull that touches the water) is 32,75 feet. The square root of 32,75 is 5.722. We then multiply this result with a factor of 1.34 and get approximately 7.67.

Now that we found the boat’s hull speed at just above 7.6 knots, we know she should be able to reach this speed in pleasant sailing conditions.

Note: If you don’t know your boat’s LWL, look up your specs here.

Average sailboat speed

When I plan a passage, I calculate with an average speed of around 6 knots, which is about 20% below hull speed, and I have found it to be pretty accurate.

To continue using Ellidah as a reference, she does 7.5 knots on calm seas and 15 knots of wind, sailing between 120 and 50 degrees true wind angle. The speed will reach 5.5 – 6.5 knots at lower or higher angles.

A good rule of thumb for most is that we can usually sail at half the apparent wind speed until we reach the boat’s hull speed, as long as we don’t have any strong currents or big waves working against us.

The bottom line of these examples is to consider the boat’s setup and the conditions we will be sailing in. Given decent conditions with good sails, we should be able to sail close to the boat’s hull speed in ideal conditions.

Determining abilities and comfort level

The last important factor to consider is yourself. Most experienced sailors don’t chase the highest possible speed but rather one that makes the boat balanced and comfortable in the conditions. It might, for example, be a good idea to slow down when beating into waves to prevent any equipment from breaking.

When sailing at night in reduced visibility, it is wise to sail more conservatively and reduce the sails, especially if you are sailing solo.

The bottom line is that looking at numbers online will only give you some of the tools you need to determine your speed and how far you can expect to travel with your boat in any timeframe.

To truly master the planning, you need to get out there, get your sails up, and combine your knowledge with the theory. After a while, you will be able to impress your friends with accurate estimations of speed, time, and distance.

A realistic average speed for sailboats between 30 and 50 feet

If you don’t want to bother with the calculations just yet and get out on the water as soon as possible, I made a little cheat sheet to help. I calculated the hull speed of small and big sailboats ranging from 30-50 feet and put them into a table.

Since we need to consider the factors discussed in this article, I have also subtracted 20% off the hull speed and rounded the result to give a more accurate estimate of a realistic cruising speed.

Final words

How far you can sail in a given time depends on your sailboat’s speed. How fast you can go depends on the weather conditions, the type and size of the boat, your setup, your equipment, and your capabilities and comfort.

Don’t get too obsessed with reaching your maximum speed unless you are racing. The trip might take a few extra hours when you slow things down, but you will enjoy yourself and your sailboat best when you are in control and sail conservatively, which comes with the benefit of being safer for both you and your boat.

Discover How Far You Can Sail In a Day – FAQ

How long does it take to sail 60 nautical miles.

With an average speed of 5 knots, you can expect to sail 60 nautical miles in about 12 hours. If you can increase your speed to 6 knots, it will take you 10 hours.

How long does it take to sail 100 miles?

With an average speed of 5 knots, it will take about 20 hours to sail 100 nautical miles. If you increase the speed to 6 knots, 100 nautical miles will take around 17 hours.

How fast do sailboats go?

A sailboat between 30 and 40 feet will typically sail between 4 and 7 knots.
A sailboat between 40 and 50 feet will typically sail between 5 and 8 knots.

How fast can a sailboat go under power?

Most modern sailboats have an engine dimensioned to power the boat up to its hull speed and basically make you able to achieve the same speed under power as under sail. There are, of course, exceptions. I wrote an article about sailing without sails that may interest you .

How do I convert speed in knots to miles per hour?

One knot equals one nautical mile per hour, which is 1.151 miles per hour. mph = knots * 1.151

What is the average speed of a 40 ft. sailboat?

The average speed of a 40 ft. sailboat is realistically about 6.5 knots in favorable conditions, depending on the type of boat, its sails, and its weight.

How far can a sailboat travel in a day?

What factors affect how far you can sail in a day.

The factors that affect how far you can sail in a day include the sailboat’s hull length, sailing speed, weather conditions, tide, and the sailing ability of yourself and the boat.

How does hull length affect the sailing distance of a boat?

Hull length plays a significant role in determining how far a sailboat can sail. Smaller sailboats with shorter hull lengths generally have lower maximum hull speeds. Larger boats with longer hull lengths can sustain higher speeds and cover many more nautical miles daily.

Can you sail downwind to cover more distance in a day?

Not necessarily. Some sailboats perform best with the wind behind the beam (downwind), such as catamarans and light semi-planing hulls. However, most displacement sailboats perform best close to a beam reach, with the wind in from the side. Besides, since you can’t change the direction of the wind, you’ll have to calculate your ideal velocity made good on the course toward your destination (VMC), depending on the conditions you are sailing in.

How fast can a sailboat typically sail?

The sailing speed of a boat depends on several factors, such as wind conditions and the boat’s design and size. A smaller vessel of around 30 feet will typically cruise at 5 knots +, depending on design. A 49-foot sailboat may cruise as high as 7 knots or higher on average, depending on its traits.

How can I determine the approximate maximum sailing distance of my boat?

To determine your boat’s approximate maximum sailing distance, you take your sailboat’s hull speed and multiply it with the time you intend to sail in hours. The result will give you your approximate maximum sailing distance for your boat in nautical miles.

How long does it take to sail a certain distance?

The time it takes to sail a certain distance depends on various factors, such as wind conditions and the sailing speed of the boat. By calculating the sailing speed and dividing the desired distance by it, you can estimate the sailing time required.

Can I sail for 8 hours in a day?

Yes, of course you can! With an average speed of 6.5 knots, you can travel 52 nautical miles in 8 hours.

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Skipper, Electrician and ROV Pilot

Robin is the founder and owner of Sailing Ellidah and has been living on his sailboat since 2019. He is currently on a journey to sail around the world and is passionate about writing his story and helpful content to inspire others who share his interest in sailing.

A record on the high seas: Cole Brauer becomes first US woman to sail solo around the world

On Thursday, Cole Brauer made history, becoming the first American woman to sail solo nonstop around the world. The 29-year-old from Long Island, New York, celebrated at the finish line in Spain by drinking champagne from her trophy.

Friends, peers and sailing enthusiasts had been cheering Brauer on since last October, when she embarked on her more than four-month journey.

Race organizer Marco Nannini told USA TODAY he started the Global Solo Challenge to "create a platform for sailors like Cole to showcase her skills and move on to a pro sailor career."

While at sea Brauer kept her more than 400,000 Instagram followers updated − and entertained − with videos from onboard First Light. The trip was extremely challenging and physically exhausting, Brauer said in one video from December.

In the post, she describes how frustrated she felt when she had to fix and replace different parts of the boat.

"I don't want you guys to think I'm like Superwoman or something," Brauer said. "Right now I've been feeling just broken," she added, describing how she had to fix the boat's autopilot system after injuring her torso against the side of the boat's hull amid intense waves.

Who is Cole Brauer?

Brauer is from Long Island and competed for the University of Hawaii sailing team. She went to high school in East Hampton, New York, her university team website says. She was the youngest of more than a dozen sailors, or skippers, in the Global Solo Challenge.

The professional sailor lives in Boothbay, Maine, and during the spring and summer, she can be also found in Newport, Rhode Island, gearing up for races, the Newport Daily News reported last year .

Brauer has sailed on First Light, a 40-foot yacht, for over five years, the outlet reported.

"I always said I wanted to race around the world in this boat," she told the newspaper.

From above and below First Light's deck, Brauer shared aspects of her journey with followers and die-hard sailing fans.

On New Year's Eve, she donned a dress and danced at midnight , and in another post, she showed off how many pull-ups she can do.

As the only woman racing solo, nonstop around the world in the first Global Solo Challenge, Brauer said she was determined to prove there's nothing women and girls cannot accomplish.

"I push so much harder when someone's like, 'No, you can't do that,'" Brauer told NBC Nightly News . "And I'm like, 'OK, watch me.'"

Brauer is the first American woman to sail solo around the world. But Kay Cottee of Australia was the first woman in the world to accomplish the milestone, sailing off from Sydney Harbor in Australia in November 1987 and returning 189 days later.

On her profile page on the Global Solo Challenge website, Brauer said she wanted to send a message to the sailing community that it's time to leave its male-dominated culture in the past. In the profile, Brauer took aim at a lack of equal pay and what she describes as harassment in the sailing industry.

"Just as well as this community has built me up it has broken me and my fellow female teammates down. I am doing this race for them," Brauer said.

Brauer and her spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

How long was Cole Brauer at sea?

Brauer was sailing for over four months after departing on Oct. 29.

She finished second in the race, behind a sailor who departed about a month before she did.

The start times differed because that first place boat, Phillipe Delamare's Mowgli, is much slower, Nannini said, explaining the race's staggered start times.

"The format means that if you enter on a slow, small boat you can still win, which makes it much more inclusive than an event where a bigger budget is a definite advantage," he said.

France's Delamare will win first-place prize money of 7,500 euros (about $8,140), Brauer will win 5,000 euros (about $5,430) and the third place finisher will win 2,500 euros (about $2,710), Nannini said.

How dangerous was Cole Brauer's sailing race?

A medical team including a nurse and a physician trained Brauer and sent her on her journey with medicines and medical supplies, in case of any health issues, according to her Instagram account.

Early in the race, Brauer administered her own IV with a saline solution after she became dehydrated, according to one video posted to her social media.

Brauer's most serious health scare happened in early December when she said gnarly ocean conditions caused the boat to jolt, throwing her across the inside of the boat and slamming her hard against a wall.

Her ribs were badly bruised as a result, and her medical team told her to alternate between taking Advil and Tylenol, Brauer said on Instagram.

"Rigging up a sleeping seat belt has been added to my priority list," she said in the post's caption. "I know I'm very lucky that this wasn't a lot worse."

What is the Global Solo Challenge?

The inaugural Global Solo Challenge is a nonstop sailing race in which competitors departed last year from A Coruña, Spain.

The race encompasses nearly 30,000 miles and takes place mostly in the southern hemisphere.

After leaving waters off the coast of Spain, sailors travel south and around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. The race then includes the two other capes that together make up the famous three great capes: Australia's Cape Leeuwin and South America's Cape Horn.

About half of the other competitors dropped out of the race, according to racing data posted online by the Global Solo Challenge.

Delamare finished the race late last month after embarking on his journey in late September 2023, according to race data.

Contributing: Associated Press

Yachting Monthly

Digital edition

Sailing in the Arctic: how to cruise to the far north

Katy Stickland
December 6, 2021

Once you’ve experienced the beauty and peace of sailing in the Arctic, you’ll want to return again and again. Andrew Wilkes explains how to make the dream a reality

Once you've caught the sailing in the Arctic bug, it can become addictive. Credit: Cody Duncan/Alamy Stock Photo

Sailing in the Arctic can easily become an addiction, writes Andrew Wilkes .

It can start with a night spent at anchor in a remote and beautiful Scottish loch – basking in a clear starlit night in sheltered waters .

You may have spent all day negotiating tidal gates , reefing and shaking out reefs , dodging rocks and using transits. You may even have spotted a sea eagle.

Things might not have gone entirely to plan but you and your sailing partner have solved the problems along the way.

You’re tired, in a very contented way, and you might have a glass of something in your hand.

Andrew Wilkes’ Annabel J sailing in Scoresby Sund, East Greenland. Credit: Andrew Wilkes

The conversation flows and the old subject returns: where shall we go next year?

There are several sensible answers to that question: the Spanish Rías or a cruise in the Mediterranean are good, safe, options.

But… if the romance of your tranquil anchorage has taken a firm grip, you could find yourself at the boat show buying a pilot book for the Faroe Islands.

Winter evenings might be spent at the kitchen table making a passage plan ‘just for fun’.

Then, since you’ve made the plan, you might as well make an attempt at the passage.

One thing leads to another and, in a few years’ time, you find yourself sailing through the icebergs in Disko Bay.

That’s when you know you’re hooked.

The Faroe Islands

Kalsoy Island, Faroe. The northern islands have huge ridges and long fjords. Credit: Ivan Kmit/Alamy Stock Photo

Also known as Føroyar (the islands of sheep), the Faroe Islands are a group of 18 islands with many holms and stacks.

They are about 200 miles north of the Butt of Lewis and boast some of the most spectacular scenery in northern Europe.

Most of the land lies at between 300m and 800m which rises as sheer cliffs from the sea.

The more dramatic cliffs are on the west and north coasts and there are tremendous ridges and fjords in the Norðoyar (northern islands).

The eastern coasts of the central and southern islands are gentler and are deeply indented by fjords.

Strong tides rip through the islands creating eddies and overfalls .

Iceland, a land of volcanoes and small fishing towns, it not for the faint hearted but offers rich rewards. Credit: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo

Iceland lies 250 miles northwest of the Faroe Islands. It is a land of volcanoes, icecaps and spectacular geysers.

The lunar landscape created by volcanic action is hard and unforgiving.

Visiting yachts berth alongside tyre-clad quays in small fishing towns.

There are not many people but there is a great sense of Viking history about the place.

Western Fjords, Iceland. One of the remotest regions of the country, jutting out in the Denmark Strait. Credit: Sunpix Travel/Alamy Stock Photo

Thor, Odin and the Sagas rub shoulders with Eirikur Rauði (Erik the Red). Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat or Grønland) is the world’s largest island but with a population of just 56,000, it is also one of the most sparsely populated places on Earth.

Everyone lives on the coast, mainly the west and southwest coasts. 80% of the land is permanently covered in ice.

Glaciers calve icebergs into the sea which are swept down the east coast, around Kap Farvel in the south, up the west coast and around Baffin Bay.

Kap Farvel is the ‘Cape Horn’ of the northern hemisphere – its storms and vicious weather deserve the greatest respect.

Much of the coast is protected by offshore islands, which creates a magnificent cruising ground.

In the summer, it remains light continuously.

Baffin Island

Baffin Island, Canada. Samford Fjord, in the northeast of the island, enjoys 24 hours of daylight in the summer. Credit: Albert Knapp/Alamy Stock Photo

Baffin Island is the second biggest island in the northern hemisphere. It is rarely visited by yachts.

Much of our pilotage information is based on the old whalers’ observations from the 1800s and early 1900s.

Distances between anchorages are great, tides strong and ice plentiful.

Nature is all powerful and polar bears abound.

The first time we sailed there, I naively thought that, because a place had the word ‘harbour’ in its name then it would offer some shelter, but this is not necessarily the case!

The Northwest Passage

Crew need to be confident to handle heavy weather when sailing in the Arctic. Credit: Maire Wilkes

For better or worse, this is on many sailors’ ‘tick list’.

It is defined as the sea route, north of North America, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

It is blocked by ice for most of the year but global warming is taking its toll.

It was first transited by Roald Amundsen in 1906. By December 2020, 314 transits had been completed. Over half of these were completed in the last decade.

However, despite what you may read in the papers, ice can still be abundant and a successful transit is by no means guaranteed.

The remoter areas have no facilities of any sort.

Visiting sailors need to be totally self sufficient in every respect with regards to fuel, food, water, spares and maintenance.

The reward you get from this independence is a massive sense of achievement, the privilege of being in some of the most beautiful places on Earth, an almost spiritual connection with nature and, occasionally, meeting the most genuine people.

Sailing in the Arctic: The boat and her equipment

The first challenge of a cruise in higher latitudes is to get there. The boat needs to be seaworthy and comfortable for the delivery voyage.

Good, and free, guidance for choosing and equipping offshore sailing boats can be found in World Sailing’s Offshore Special Regulations (OSR).

Metal hulls are best when sailing in the Arctic as they are generally stronger and cope better with ice. Credit: Danita Delimont/Alamy Stock Photo

They are designed for yachts competing in offshore races but the advice holds good for cruising yachts.

The OSR are split into different categories ranging from short warm weather races (Cat 4) to trans-oceanic races in the world’s most hostile conditions (Cat 0).

Voyages to higher latitudes will fall within the Cat 1 or Cat 0 categories.

Weather can change rapidly and become violent when sailing in the Arctic. Credit: Bob Shepton

When you have arrived at your cruising ground there will be new challenges.

Depending on the area, these might include: poor charting, cold and windy conditions, ice, poor shelter and little or no shore facilities.

A new, and also free, resource is available in the form of the Polar Yacht Guide (PYG) which can be downloaded from the RCCPF or World Sailing websites.

You need to be familiar with your engine, and have the ability to repair it by yourself. Credit: Aleksandrs Tihonovs/Alamy Stock Photo

As the name implies, the guide specialises in best practice for high latitude cruising.

It focuses on safety and the environment. It is very difficult to translate all this into a definitive specification for a high latitude cruising yacht.

There have been some amazing voyages in small, comparatively modest, boats by people like W.H. Tillman, Willy Kerr and Bob Shepton, but I would urge high latitude sailors to consider the following…

The right hull design and material: Greenland and the Canadian Arctic have extensive coastlines and archipelagos which are not frequented by shipping. There is little commercial incentive to survey and chart the waters with a high degree of accuracy. In these areas, running aground , possibly at speed, is a probability. A modern lightweight hull sitting on top of a high-aspect fin keel is unlikely to take this well. A metal boat will withstand a sudden impact better than most GRP hulls.
Heavy-weather rigging : A strong and well tested rig with which the crew are familiar. Good, simple reefing systems and storm sails .
Anchor and chain: Unpredictable katabatic winds are likely. Excellent ground tackle comprising a choice of heavy anchors and lots of chain are recommended. Anchors have been lost in bad weather or ice conditions so spares are vital.
Protection and comfort: Crew who are over-exposed to cold and harsh conditions are not safe. Think about doghouses, cuddies and heating .
A reliable engine: Ensure your crew are familiar with the boat’s engine and have a well thought out supply of tools and spares needed to fix the engine if it runs into problems.
Simple systems: Plumbing, heating and electrical systems which the crew can repair with spares they have on board. You need to be fully self-reliant, and a broken down system that you are unable to repair yourselves could make the voyage uncomfortable or a serious danger to you and others.
Safety Equipment: Even with the latest communications equipment, boats in high latitudes can be several days away from potential help. Crews need to be capable of surviving in hostile conditions for a long time. Read the Polar Yacht Guide.

The crew: are you ready?

Having a well-prepared crew with adequate experience is essential for sailing in the Arctic. Credit: Bob Shepton

Sailing in the Arctic attracts all sorts. Many go because they want to explore beautiful cruising grounds and build on their experience.

Unfortunately, it also attracts ‘Adventurers’ whose egos exceed their abilities. These people are a danger to themselves and others.

They also give the rest of us a bad name. More about this later.

Courses and qualifications help us to acquire a basic understanding of skills but they are not a substitute for experience.

You need to know your boat, your crew and yourself. Happily there is a great way of doing this – go sailing!

Train for using safety equipment, including survival suits. Credit: Andrew Wilkes

Gain experience in your home waters, get some offshore passages under your belt and fix things yourself.

Start going further afield: spend a season or two on the west coast of Scotland or Ireland.

Then expand your horizons a bit: cruise to the Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, the Norwegian fjords and then circumnavigate Iceland.

These are all fantastic cruising grounds which are both beautiful and challenging.

I helped to write the Polar Yacht Guide and, as part of that process, we asked experienced high latitude sailors for contributions.

Members of the Irish Cruising Club have a lot of experience sailing in the Arctic.

This is what they said:

‘High-latitude experience and dedication are both really important.’

‘The skipper must have good people-handling skills along with a high dose of empathy.’

‘Crew compatibility is very important along with plenty of old-style, marina-free, cruising experience in demanding weather and anchoring conditions.’

A Refleks diesel heater keeps life comfortable on board. Credit: Andrew Wilkes

‘It’s essential to have ocean and coastal experience – even if they have no experience in Arctic regions. People with sea miles under their belt understand how to eat, sleep, work and behave in challenging conditions and can engender confidence.’

‘A physically strong crew is required to pole aside bergy bits in leads’.

‘Have someone on board with good medical skills together with a first-class medical and dental kit.’

Careful planning can help. Much like parenting, the wisest course of action is often to ‘pick your battles’.

Here are a couple of scenarios:

A voyage from the UK to Iceland could be broken in the Faroe Islands. Each leg would be about 250 miles, or about two days’ sailing. Weather forecasts for two or three days are generally pretty accurate and, provided time is available to wait for a good forecast, a passage in favourable conditions should be achievable.
Sailing directly to western Greenland from Ireland is a voyage of about 1,200 miles, a week or two’s sailing for an average cruising boat. If ice conditions are unfavourable, a longer passage further north up the west coast of Greenland will be necessary. The weather off Kap Farvel, on the southern tip of Greenland, is often extreme and it can change quickly. By the time a sailing yacht is in this area, the forecasts downloaded before departure will be out of date.

Sailing in the Arctic: Navigating in ice

Ice and icebergs are plentiful in Disko Bay, West Greenland. Credit: Sergey Oyadnikov/Alamy Stock Photo

People sometimes have the perception that global warming is melting all the ice so a small boat passage through, say, the Northwest Passage is easy.

This is too simplistic: global warming is melting the ice and there is a lot less ice than there was 20 years ago but there are still ‘good’ ice years and ‘bad’ ice years.

There are long-range ice forecasts but we don’t really know what kind of year it is going to be until the navigation season has started. 2018 was a ‘bad’ year and only three vessels managed to transit the Northwest Passage.

Ice arches are quite common – do not be tempted to go through them in a dinghy – they do collapse. Credit: Maire Wilkes

2017 was a ‘good’ year and there were 32 successful transits, 22 of which were made by yachts.

Navigating in these waters requires both good planning and luck.

There are a couple of important things you probably already know about navigating in ice: only a the tip of the iceberg is above the surface and a cubic metre of ice weighs a tonne. So a yacht of, say, 10 or even 50 tonnes is not going to smash through much ice.

We have to navigate around it and this determines where we can go. We study ice charts and try to avoid areas showing more than 3/10 ice.

Don’t try to navigate in areas with more than 3/10 ice coverage. A long pole can be helpful to push aside smaller floes. Credit: Jonathan Sumpton/Alamy

However, ice charts, like weather forecasts, are not always entirely accurate and they do go out of date.

Navigation in ice is covered in more detail in my book Arctic and Northern Waters and also in High Latitude Sailing by Bob Shepton and Jon Amtrup.

Much useful information can also be gleaned from reading the Polar Yacht Guide and the Canadian websites which are written for ships navigating in polar waters.

( https://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/publications/index-eng.html ).

Things to consider when sailing in the Arctic:

Know how to use ice charts to find out which waters are navigable.
Wind and current will move ice. Use weather forecasts in conjunction with ice charts to forecast ice movements.
Anchor watches are necessary to avoid being hit by ice
Fog and ice often go hand in hand.
Fuel consumption will be increased whilst navigating in icy waters.
Learn traditional techniques such as spotting open water leads, ice blink and water skies.
Ice shelves often protrude from an iceberg or ice floe beneath the surface – do not go too close.
Icebergs and glaciers often ‘calve’ without warning. Decide on safe distances from icebergs.
One or two ice-poles are useful for pushing away small floes.
Radar may detect icebergs but will probably not smaller bergs or flat floes.
Ice accretion on a vessel will affect her stability as well as the operation of mechanical equipment, electrics and antennas.

Impact on the environment

An Arctic fox in its darker summer coat – one of numerous species to be spotted while sailing in the Arctic. Credit: Rodger Grayson and Ali Dedman

The days of ‘attempting a transit through the Northwest Passage to highlight global warming’ are gone.

We all know global warming is happening and, if we are honest with ourselves, we should know that our presence sailing in the Arctic is not helping.

If we choose to sail there, we should make it incumbent upon ourselves to minimise our impact on the environment.

A polar bear swims around the boat at Beechy Island. A common sight when sailing in the Arctic

A polar bear swims around the boat at Beechy Island. Credit: Maire Wilkes

We sail there because we love nature, so it should not be difficult to convince ourselves that we should do our best to protect it.

Environmental considerations

The Arctic has one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.
The short Arctic growing season means that plants grow at a very slow rate.
It is home to some of the world’s most endangered species.
Cold temperatures slow down or stop the decomposition of organic matter.

Vessels visiting the Antarctic have to obtain a Permit. This requires a high degree of planning including a boat specific Environmental Impact Assessment.

While there are many regulations designed to protect the Antarctic environment, at present little legislation applies to the Arctic and it is left to skippers to act responsibly.

Responsible Arctic cruising

A hunter in Qinngertivaq Fjord, eastern Greenland. Respect local people and their culture when sailing in the Arctic

A hunter in Qinngertivaq Fjord, eastern Greenland. Credit: Jonathan Sumpton/Alamy Stock Photo

Detailed guidance is given in Arctic and Northern Waters and in the Polar Yacht Guide. This includes:

Responsible engine, generator and outboard maintenance
Fuel transfers
Dealing with oil and fuel spills
Boat maintenance
Trips ashore
Management of rubbish and waste disposal
Black and grey water disposal
Biosecurity and minimising the risks of introducing invasive species
Responsible behaviour at historical sites
Respecting local people and their culture
How to minimise our disturbance to wildlife – ashore, at sea and in the air

The Polar Yacht Guide includes an example of a boat specific ‘Environmental Protection Plan’.

Every boat will have different limitations and resources, so skippers must develop their own boat code of best practice.

Make a plan for sailing in the Arctic

If you have not sailed in high latitudes before, and I haven’t dissuaded you from doing so, you need to make a plan.

Remember Roald Amundsen’s advice to foresee and prepare for every difficulty, read all you can and get as much experience as you can.

Be a Seaman not an ill-prepared ‘Adventurer.’

The author’t boat sailing in Scoresby Sund, East Greenland. Credit: Maire Wilkes

You will need a boat and you will need to equip her. Like most sailing projects, this can either be done expensively or very expensively.

It is unlikely to be done cheaply but, if you are committed, it is probably achievable.

You can read accounts of, mainly, successful high-latitude cruises on the web pages of sailing clubs like the RCC, OCC and Trans-Ocean.

I gave a talk recently about sailing in the Arctic which was followed by a number of mainly very sensible questions.

Continues below…

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Yacht cruising within the Arctic Circle has become increasingly popular,  but what is the best type of yacht for the…

Roger Taylor sailing his Achilles 24 Mingming II

Roger Taylor: Impossible voyage conquered

Roger Taylor navigates his engineless 24ft Mingming II on a 4,000 mile nonstop voyage around the usually icebound waters of…

Heavy weather sailing: preparing for extreme conditions

Alastair Buchan and other expert ocean cruisers explain how best to prepare when you’ve been ‘caught out’ and end up…

Adventure: guide to sailing in storms

Award-winning sailor and expedition leader Bob Shepton regularly sails some of the most storm-swept latitudes in the world. Not bad…

The question which floored me came from a relatively inexperienced listener who asked: ‘How much would it cost me to equip a boat and sail through the Northwest Passage?’ He had totally missed the point.

Sailing in these waters is not about money, the size or sophistication of your boat.

It is not even about the training you have done or the safety equipment you might have on board.

Greenland’s capital Nuuk is a good option for resupply and crew changes when sailing in the Arctic. Credit: Niels Melander/Alamy Stock Photo

What is important is the experience you have gained before moving on to the next stage of your sailing career.

Enthusiasts will read everything they can about the subject at hand, learn from anyone they can and practise their skills until they become second nature.

If you do this, and are honest with yourself, you will know if the boat, the crew and you are ready.

Successes and failures

Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian who led the first successful transit through the Northwest Passage famously wrote, ‘I may say that this is the greatest factor – the way in which the expedition is equipped – the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order – luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck.’

He completed the transit in 1906 but his advice is as relevant today as it ever was. Some have followed it and others have not.

I am not sure if the Franklin expedition should be counted as a success or a failure.

A sailing in the Arctic pioneer - Roald Amundsen who led the first successful voyage through the Northwest Passage. Credit: GL Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

Roald Amundsen who led the first successful voyage through the Northwest Passage. Credit: GL Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

Much has been written about Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage.

His two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and 134 officers and men were lost in the ice off King William Island.

The British, however, have a unique talent for remodelling apparent failures into resounding successes.

The expedition prompted a huge interest in Arctic exploration and much was learned from the expeditions which followed this one.

Roald Amundsen was a smart Norwegian cookie.

Not for him the grandeur of the Royal Navy. Despite not having a 1,000-book library, extravagant dinner services, dress uniforms, and highly polished brass buttons, he transited the Northwest Passage for the first time in 1906.

Amundsen transited the Northwest Passage in an old herring boat with a crew of six men. Credit: Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

He did it, over a period of three years, in a converted herring fishing boat with six men dressed in Inuit seal-skins.

My wife, Máire, and I were moored alongside in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland in 2008.

A 32ft yacht, with a broken boom, tied up alongside us. We invited the two crew onboard and they told us their story.

The owner/skipper was very ‘gung-ho’ and rather full of his and his boat’s prowess. The other man was very quiet.

I think he was still in a state of shock following their recent ‘adventure’.

They had been knocked-down that day whilst sailing in bad weather, the boom and sails were in pieces.

The crew had been washed over the side but had managed to clamber back onboard. The boat and her contents were soaking.

We gave them a hot meal and dry sleeping bags.

The crewman flew home the next day and I often wonder what became of the skipper.

Adventurers vs Seamen

In 2013 a group of American adventurers, who featured in a US reality TV show called Dangerous Waters , attempted to use jet-skis to transit the Northwest Passage.

Andrew Wilkes has cruised all his adult life. He and his wife cruise Annabel J, a 56ft gaff cutter, in remote areas such as the Baltic, Alaska and Chile

Their tent was torn up by a polar bear and the jet-skis did not work when the sea started to freeze.

They and their support/fuel boat were rescued by the Canadian Coastguard.

The rescue expedition is reported to have cost a six-figure sum.

The yacht Anahita , an Ovni 345, was crushed by ice and sank in the approaches to the Bellot Strait in 2018.

The Canadian Coastguard had warned yachts away from the area four days before the incident. Fortunately the crew were rescued.

On a positive note, the number of people sailing in high latitudes is increasing year on year.

Nearly all of their passages are successfully completed by competent sailors in well-equipped boats.

Additional information for sailing in the Arctic

Polar Yacht Guide Alan Green, Andrew Wilkes, Victor Wejer & Skip Novak (World Sailing/Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation, free) https://rccpf.org.uk/pilots/187/Polar-Yacht-Guide OR www.sailing.org/sailors/safety/polar_yacht_guide.php

Arctic and Northern Waters by Andrew Wilkes (Imray/Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation, £65)

Sailing in the Arctic you will need the pilot book Arctic and Northern Waters

Buy Arctic and Northern Waters at Amazon (UK)

Buy Arctic and Northern Waters at Amazon (US)

High Latitude Sailing by Jon Amtrup & Bob Shepton (Adlard Coles, £25)

Sailing in the Arctic - you will need a copy of High Latitude Sailing

Buy High Latitude Sailing at Amazon (UK)

Buy High Latitude Sailing at Amazon (US)

Buy High Latitude Sailing at Waterstones

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Arctic and Northern Waters and NW Passage Periplus : https://rccpf.org.uk/pilots/191/Periplus-to-Northwest-Passage

World Sailing Offshore Special Regulations https://www.sailing.org/specialregs

Canadian Coastguard publications (including the Manual of Ice, Notices to Mariners, Canadian Aids to Navigation ): https://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/publications/index-eng.html

Few, if any, high latitude recreational cruises took place in 2020-21 due to the COVID pandemic.

At the time of writing (Oct 2021), most Arctic communities do not welcome foreign visitors due to limited resources to cope with potential outbreaks.

It is hoped this will change next year, but contact the appropriate authorities before departing.

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How Sails Work: Understanding the Basics

Table of Contents

Sailing is all about physics and geometry but don’t worry, it’s not too hard to learn. Once the theory is down, it’s all a matter of practice. Let’s look at what sails are and how they work.

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Aerodynamics, hydrodynamics & modern sails

Sails work like airplane wings, except they’re vertical rather than horizontal. As the wind hits the front of a curved sail, it splits, passing on both the downwind (leeward) side and upwind (windward) side.

The leeward wind travels farther due to the curvature of the sail and creates a low-pressure area while the windward wind travels a shorter distance and reaches the aft end faster – together, they create aerodynamic lift that “pulls” the boat forward .

The keel or centerboard in the water below the hull prevents the boat from being pushed sideways. With the lift of the sails and the lateral push or hydrodynamics of the keel, the boat is propelled forward. Where the wind concentrates force in the sails is called the center of effort, while the keel below is called the center of lateral resistance.

Most modern sailboats have a forward (or headsail) and a mainsail. The headsail may be called a genoa, jib, or staysail (different sizes) and is attached at the top of the mast and leads down at an angle to the bow . It’s controlled by lines called sheets. The mainsail is supported by the mast and is attached at the bottom to a lateral spar called the boom.

Parts of a sail

Sails come in various shapes, but for our purposes, we will focus on modern, triangular sails. The top of the sail is called the head , and the bottom is the foot. The forward end of the foot is the tack, and the aft end is the clew. The forward edge of the sail is the luff, and the aft end is the leach.

Telltales or short strands of yarn are often attached near the leading edge of a sail to help with sail trim. The shape of the sail is ideal when the strands on both sides are streaming back at the same level, which indicates that wind is moving evenly along both sides of the sail.

Points of sail

A boat cannot sail directly into the wind– instead, it sails at an angle to the true breeze. Close hauled is roughly 45 degrees off the wind, close reach is 60 degrees, beam reach is at 90 degrees, and a broad reach is approximately 150 degrees off the wind.

When moving directly or dead downwind, a boat is said to be running, and when the bow is pointed into the wind, that’s called being in irons. A boat cannot sail in irons and can be hard to control when running. When sails begin to luff at the leading edge, the boat is trying to sail too close to the wind and will stall.

Tacking and jibing (gybing)

A boat changes direction by either tacking or jibing. Sailing upwind, a boat tacks when the bow passes through the eye of the wind until the boat is sailing on the opposite side or “tack” creating a zig-zag course. When sailing downwind, the boat jibes when passing the stern through the wind.

Turning upwind is called heading up and turning away, or downwind is falling off. When the wind passes over the starboard rail first, you’re on a starboard tack and vice versa.

Pro Tip: You can learn how to sail without owning a sailboat. Find a sailboat rental near you , then book! You can save that boat listing and book again to continue practicing.

Sail shape & angle

Boats sail in true wind (the wind that is actually blowing at a given speed and angle) by they’re actually responding to the apparent wind (the angle and speed of the breeze that is felt once the boat is moving). The wind always changes speed and angle, so sails must be adjusted or trimmed in response to the boat to maintain optimal speed.

When sailing upwind, the sails are sheeted in (made flatter by pulling in the sheet lines) to create better foils and greater lift or pull. When sailing downwind, sails are usually loosened or let out to create a “belly” and adjusted to be as perpendicular to the angle of the wind as possible.

Sheeting in (bringing the sails closer to the centerline) enables the boat to point higher (sail closer to the true wind) while easing out (loosening the aft end of the sail) creates more power when the wind is aft like around the beam or broad reach.

A boat is more likely to heel when sheeted in and sailing upwind. Excessive healing doesn’t mean the boat is traveling faster. In fact, it may just be getting overpowered and becoming less efficient than if the sails were trimmed properly.

In high winds, shorten or reef sails so the boat doesn’t become overpowered and potentially dangerous. Reefing is done at the tack and clue or the forward and aft parts of the foot of the sail. There may be 1-3 pre-rigged reefing points controlled by reefing lines, so the sails can be made as small as necessary to keep the boat from heeling too far.

Easy to learn

Trimming sails takes time to master; let sails out until they luff or flap, and then sheet in until you feel the boat pick up speed. Smaller boats react quickly to each adjustment and are better for new sailors to learn on than large boats that take a minute to speed up or slow down. Once you’ve mastered the theory, you may spend years perfecting your sailing skills.

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Zuzana Prochazka is an award-winning freelance journalist and photographer with regular contributions to more than a dozen sailing and powerboating magazines and online publications including Southern Boating, SEA, Latitudes & Attitudes and SAIL. She is SAIL magazines Charter Editor and the Executive Director of Boating Writers International. Zuzana serves as judge for SAIL’s Best Boats awards and for Europe’s Best of Boats in Berlin.

A USCG 100 Ton Master, Zuzana founded and manages a flotilla charter organization called Zescapes that takes guests adventure sailing at destinations worldwide.

Zuzana has lived in Europe, Africa and the United States and has traveled extensively in South America, the islands of the South Pacific and Mexico.

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Time Estimation: How Long Does It Take a Sailboat to Cross the Atlantic?

Alex Morgan

Crossing the Atlantic by sailboat is an exhilarating and challenging adventure that requires careful planning and preparation. The time it takes for a sailboat to cross the Atlantic can vary depending on various factors. In this article, we will explore the duration of a sailboat crossing and the factors that can influence it.

Factors Affecting the Duration of a Sailboat Crossing

Several factors come into play when determining the duration of a sailboat crossing the Atlantic:

1. Distance and Route: The distance and chosen route play a significant role in determining the time taken to cross the Atlantic. Different routes have varying lengths and can impact the overall time frame.

2. Type of Sailboat: The type of sailboat being used will affect its speed and performance. Factors such as the boat’s size, design, and ability to handle different conditions can influence the crossing time.

3. Weather Conditions: Weather conditions, including wind strength and direction, can greatly impact the speed of a sailboat. Favorable winds can help sailboats achieve faster crossing times, while adverse weather conditions may slow them down.

4. Skill and Experience of the Crew: The skill and experience of the crew members onboard the sailboat are crucial. Knowledge of navigation, sail handling, and seamanship can contribute to efficient sailing and potentially shorten the crossing time.

Average Time Frame for Crossing the Atlantic

The time it takes to cross the Atlantic can vary depending on the factors mentioned above. There are average time frames for different routes:

1. Traditional Route: The traditional route from Europe to the Caribbean or the United States typically takes between 14 to 21 days.

2. Trade Winds Route: Following the trade winds from the Canary Islands or Cape Verde to the Caribbean generally takes around 21 to 28 days.

3. Northern Route: Sailing through the northern part of the Atlantic, such as from Europe to the East Coast of the United States or Canada, can take between 20 to 40 days.

4. Racing or High-Performance Sailboats: Racing sailboats or high-performance vessels designed for speed can complete the crossing in under 10 days. This is not typical for most leisure sailboats.

Challenges and Considerations during the Atlantic Crossing

There are several challenges and considerations that sailors need to be aware of during their Atlantic crossing:

1. Isolation and Self-Sufficiency: Crossing the Atlantic involves being away from land for an extended period, requiring sailors to be self-sufficient and prepared for any contingencies.

2. Sea Sickness and Physical Well-being: Sailors may experience sea sickness and need to maintain their physical well-being to ensure a safe and comfortable journey.

3. Navigation and Watchkeeping: Proper navigation and watchkeeping are vital during the crossing to ensure the sailboat stays on course and avoids obstacles.

Tips and Strategies to Shorten the Crossing Time

While the duration of the Atlantic crossing depends on various factors, there are tips and strategies that can help shorten the time:

1. Choosing the Right Season: Picking the right season with favorable weather conditions and currents can help optimize the crossing time.

2. Proper Route Planning: Careful route planning, considering factors such as wind patterns and ocean currents, can help sailors take advantage of favorable conditions and achieve faster crossing times.

3. Optimizing Sail Settings: Adjusting and optimizing the sail settings based on wind conditions and boat performance can help maximize speed and efficiency.

4. Utilizing Ocean Currents: Utilizing ocean currents, such as the North Atlantic Current or the Gulf Stream, can provide an additional boost in speed and shorten the overall crossing time.

By understanding the factors influencing the crossing time, being prepared for challenges, and implementing effective strategies, sailors can make the most of their Atlantic crossing experience.

1. Distance and route: The duration of a sailboat crossing the Atlantic depends on the distance and specific route chosen. Factors such as the traditional, trade winds, northern, or racing routes play a role in determining the time frame.

2. Type of sailboat: The type and design of the sailboat can impact the duration of the crossing. High-performance sailboats can complete the journey in under 10 days, while other sailboats may take longer.

3. Weather conditions: Weather conditions, including wind patterns and storms, greatly affect the duration of a sailboat crossing. Calm winds or adverse weather can significantly increase the time taken.

4. Skill and experience of the crew: The expertise and experience of the sailboat crew can contribute to a faster or slower crossing. Knowledge of navigation, watchkeeping, and optimized sail settings can help shorten the duration.

1. Traditional route: The traditional route across the Atlantic takes approximately 14-21 days. This route is widely used by sailors and offers a balanced journey.

2. Trade winds route: Sailboats taking the trade winds route typically complete the crossing in 21-28 days. Following the prevailing winds, this route offers consistent sailing conditions.

3. Northern route: The northern route can take from 20 to 40 days. This route is known for its challenging weather conditions, including strong winds and potential icebergs.

4. Racing or high-performance sailboats: Specially designed racing or high-performance sailboats can complete the crossing in under 10 days. These boats are optimized for speed and maneuverability.

1. Isolation and self-sufficiency: During the Atlantic crossing, sailors face the challenge of isolation and the need to be self-sufficient. Adequate preparation and supplies are essential for a successful journey.

2. Sea sickness and physical well-being: Sailors may experience sea sickness and need to maintain their physical well-being throughout the crossing. Proper rest, nutrition, and medication can help mitigate these challenges.

3. Navigation and watchkeeping: Accurate navigation and careful watchkeeping are crucial during the Atlantic crossing. Continuous monitoring of the sailboat’s position and course adjustments are necessary for a safe and efficient journey.

1. Choosing the right season: Selecting the appropriate season can help shorten the crossing time. Favorable weather conditions, including consistent winds, can expedite the journey.

2. Proper route planning: Thorough route planning, considering factors such as weather forecasts and potential hazards, can contribute to a faster crossing. Avoiding unfavorable conditions and optimizing the route can save time.

3. Optimizing sail settings: Making necessary adjustments to the sail settings based on wind conditions can improve speed and shorten the crossing time. Maximizing the use of favorable winds is crucial.

4. Utilizing ocean currents: Utilizing ocean currents strategically can enhance the sailboat’s speed and reduce the duration of the crossing. Knowledge of currents and using them to sail efficiently is advantageous.

When it comes to crossing the Atlantic on a sailboat, the duration can vary greatly based on several crucial factors. Join me as we explore these factors together, uncovering the secrets that influence the timeframe of this incredible journey. We’ll take a closer look at the distance and route chosen, the type of sailboat being used, the wild and unpredictable weather conditions encountered, and the indispensable skill and experience of the crew. Get ready to set sail and discover what it takes to conquer the vast Atlantic waters!

1. Distance and Route

The duration of a sailboat crossing the Atlantic depends on two main factors: distance and route. Different routes have varying time frames due to factors like prevailing winds and currents. See the table below for approximate time frames:

When planning a sailboat crossing, it is important to carefully consider the distance and route. Longer routes may require more time and provisioning, while shorter routes may involve more challenging weather conditions. The type of sailboat, weather conditions, and the skill and experience of the crew also impact the crossing’s duration.

2. Type of Sailboat

The duration of a sailboat crossing is significantly impacted by the type of sailboat. Different sailboats have varying speeds and capabilities, which can affect the crossing time.

Size: Larger sailboats are faster and more stable, allowing for quicker crossings.
Hull design: Sailboats with streamlined hull designs are more aerodynamically efficient, resulting in faster speeds.
Rigging: Modern sailboats with advanced rigging systems, like roller furling and high-performance sails, can enhance speed and maneuverability.
Weight: Lighter sailboats are faster, especially in favorable wind conditions.
Technology: Sailboats equipped with advanced navigation and weather forecasting systems can optimize sailing routes and take advantage of favorable conditions.

It’s important to note that the type of sailboat is only one of many factors that influence the duration of a crossing. Other factors such as weather conditions , crew skill , and chosen route also play significant roles in determining crossing time.

Fact: Racing or high-performance sailboats are designed for speed and can cross the Atlantic in under 10 days, making them the fastest option for a quick crossing.

3. Weather Conditions

The duration of a sailboat crossing the Atlantic is influenced by weather conditions . Sailing across the Atlantic Ocean can be challenging due to the unpredictable weather . The table below outlines the impact of different weather conditions on the crossing time:

Sailors should monitor and plan for the weather conditions they may encounter during the crossing. By understanding how weather conditions can affect their journey, sailors can make informed decisions to optimize their route and maximize sailing efficiency.

One true story exemplifies the significance of weather conditions during an Atlantic crossing. A solo sailor encountered a severe storm, causing significant damage to the sailboat and forcing the sailor to seek refuge on a nearby island. This unexpected delay extended the crossing duration, emphasizing the importance of being prepared for adverse weather conditions when embarking on such a journey.

4. Skill and Experience of the Crew

The crew’s skill and experience are crucial for the success and safety of an Atlantic crossing by sailboat. Here are key considerations:

1. Experience: The crew’s sailing experience is vital for managing different situations during the crossing. Experience helps with handling weather conditions, accurate navigation, and informed decision making.

2. Knowledge: A crew with a strong understanding of navigation, weather patterns, and sailboat maintenance enhances efficiency and safety.

3. Teamwork: Effective teamwork and communication are essential for maintaining harmony on board. The crew must work together to manage tasks, shifts, and ensure everyone’s well-being.

4. Emergency Preparedness: A skilled crew should be trained and knowledgeable in dealing with equipment failure, medical emergencies, and adverse weather.

Pro-tip: Before embarking on an Atlantic crossing, it is recommended to participate in training programs and gain experience through shorter offshore trips. This hands-on experience boosts the crew’s confidence, competence, and readiness for the crossing’s challenges.

Curious about how long it takes for a sailboat to cross the Atlantic? Let’s dive into the average time frames, each with its own unique factors. We’ll explore the traditional route , which typically takes around 14-21 days , the trade winds route ranging from 21-28 days , the northern route with a variable span of 20-40 days , and for racing or high-performance sailboats, a swift journey of under 10 days . Get ready for a thrilling adventure across the vast ocean!

1. Traditional Route: 14-21 Days

The traditional route for crossing the Atlantic by sailboat typically takes 14-21 days . Follow these steps to complete this journey:

Prepare your sailboat: Ensure it is in good condition with necessary equipment and supplies.
Check weather conditions: Monitor the forecast and look for stable winds and calm seas.
Plot your course: Plan your route, considering wind patterns, currents, and potential obstacles.
Set sail: Depart from your starting point and follow the planned route.
Monitor progress: Track speed, direction, and distance using navigational tools.
Maintain watch schedule: Take turns on deck, watching for other vessels and hazards.
Adjust sails: Optimize sail positioning for speed and efficiency.
Stay well-rested and nourished: Take breaks to rest, eat, and hydrate for physical well-being.
Adapt to changing conditions: Make route or sailing adjustments based on current weather conditions.
Arrive at your destination: After 14-21 days , reach the other side of the Atlantic.

By following these steps and making necessary preparations, you can successfully complete the traditional Atlantic crossing by sailboat in 14-21 days .

2. Trade Winds Route: 21-28 Days

The Trade Winds Route , which takes approximately 21 to 28 days , is a well-known route for sailboats crossing the Atlantic. To provide some key details about this route:

– Route Name: Trade Winds Route

– Duration: 21-28 days

– Distance: Approximately 2800-3200 nautical miles

– Optimal Season: Late fall to early spring

– Starting Point: Canary Islands

– Ending Point: Caribbean islands

The Trade Winds Route makes use of the prevailing trade winds that blow from east to west in the Atlantic. These winds can be harnessed by sailboats to traverse the ocean.

Throughout the journey, sailors may encounter various weather conditions, including storms and calms. The crew’s proficiency and experience play a vital role in successfully navigating and managing the boat.

It is worth mentioning that the duration of a sailboat crossing can vary depending on factors such as the type of sailboat and specific weather conditions.

Historically, the Trade Winds Route was utilized by explorers and traders traveling between Europe and the Americas. The consistent winds offered a dependable mode of transportation across the expansive Atlantic Ocean. Today, sailors and adventurers continue to embark on this route to relish the excitement and challenge of crossing the Atlantic by sail.

3. Northern Route: 20-40 Days

The Northern Route , which takes 20 to 40 days, is an option for crossing the Atlantic by sailboat. When considering this route, there are several factors to keep in mind.

First, the duration of the journey is determined by weather conditions , which can be unpredictable and include storms and rough seas.

Second, skill and experience are essential for navigating this route, as the crew must be able to handle adverse weather conditions and be prepared for long periods at sea.

Third, proper navigation is vital for safety and progress, so the crew needs up-to-date tools to navigate accurately and watch for obstacles.

Finally, isolation and self-sufficiency are significant on this route, as the crew must be able to handle emergencies and have enough provisions, fuel, and water for the crossing.

To shorten the crossing time and increase the chances of success, here are some suggestions to consider.

First, choose the right season, taking into account weather patterns and wind availability.

Second, plan the route to take advantage of favorable currents and wind patterns , and make sure to understand potential hazards and plan suitable waypoints.

Third, optimize sail settings for efficiency and speed, adjusting sails to adapt to changing weather conditions.

Use ocean currents to enhance speed and navigation, understanding the Atlantic currents and incorporating them into route planning to improve the crossing time.

4. Racing or High-Performance Sailboats: Under 10 Days

Racing or high-performance sailboats can complete the Atlantic crossing in under 10 days. These exceptional vessels are specifically designed for speed and performance, utilizing lightweight materials and advanced hull designs. Consistent and strong winds are ideal for achieving faster crossing times. The crew on racing or high-performance sailboats are highly skilled and experienced in maximizing the boat’s potential and making strategic decisions for speed.

To further shorten the crossing time, consider the following tips and strategies:

1. Choose the right season: Time the crossing during seasons with favorable weather conditions for smoother sailing and faster speeds.

2. Proper route planning: Select the most efficient and direct route, taking into account prevailing winds and ocean currents to save time and distance.

3. Optimize sail settings: Adjust the sails for maximum efficiency and utilize advanced sail technology to enhance speed and performance.

4. Utilize ocean currents: Take advantage of favorable ocean currents to boost speed and shorten the overall crossing time.

By considering these factors and employing effective strategies, racing or high-performance sailboats can demonstrate impressive speeds and complete the Atlantic crossing in under 10 days.

Challenges and Considerations During the Atlantic Crossing

Navigating the vast Atlantic Ocean on a sailboat is an endeavor that comes with its own set of challenges and considerations. From the isolation and self-sufficiency required during the journey to the impact of sea sickness on physical well-being, and the crucial role of navigation and watchkeeping, this section offers insights into the various aspects that sailors face during the Atlantic crossing . Get ready to dive into the realities of this remarkable feat and discover the endurance required to conquer the voyage.

1. Isolation and Self-Sufficiency

Isolation and self-sufficiency are vital when it comes to crossing the Atlantic by sailboat. Sailors may experience a sense of isolation due to the vastness of the sea. There are no nearby towns or cities, and interaction with fellow vessels may be limited. To embark on this journey successfully, sailors must mentally prepare themselves for the solitude and embrace the tranquility of the open ocean. Being self-sufficient is crucial. Sailors must ensure they have an ample supply of food , water , and fuel for the voyage. They also need to possess navigation tools, safety equipment, and spare parts for any necessary repairs. It is essential for sailors to develop their navigation, sail handling, and boat maintenance skills to manage any unexpected challenges. To combat isolation, it is helpful to establish a daily routine and set goals. Engaging in activities such as reading, fishing, or appreciating the natural surroundings can enhance the experience of self-sufficiency.

2. Sea Sickness and Physical Well-being

Sea sickness and physical well-being play vital roles when sailing across the Atlantic. It is crucial to consider several factors in order to ensure a comfortable journey:

1. Medication: It is advisable to bring along anti-sea sickness medication such as Dramamine or scopolamine patches . These medications effectively alleviate symptoms and prevent nausea, thus reducing the discomfort caused by sea sickness.

2. Food and hydration: Managing sea sickness can be achieved by consuming small, frequent meals and staying hydrated . To prevent nausea, it is best to avoid greasy, spicy, or heavy foods. Drinking ample amounts of water is important to prevent dehydration, which can exacerbate sea sickness.

3. Motion sickness prevention measures: To combat motion sickness, it is recommended to seek fresh air , keep your gaze fixed on the horizon , and refrain from reading or looking at screens , as these activities can worsen symptoms. Taking breaks and resting as needed can also help manage the effects of motion sickness.

4. Physical fitness: Prioritizing regular exercise before embarking on the journey can greatly improve balance, stability, and overall well-being , consequently reducing the likelihood of experiencing sea sickness. Focusing on core strength and stability exercises can provide additional benefits.

5. Rest and sleep: A well-rested body is better equipped to cope with sea sickness. It is important to ensure sufficient sleep both before and during the journey to maintain physical well-being.

By following these suggestions, you can mitigate the effects of sea sickness and enhance your physical well-being during your sailboat crossing of the Atlantic.

3. Navigation and Watchkeeping

When crossing the Atlantic on a sailboat, navigation and watchkeeping are crucial. Here are some key factors to consider:

1. Navigational equipment: Ensure the sailboat has reliable tools like GPS , marine charts, compass, and radar. These devices help navigate accurately and determine the vessel’s position.

2. Course planning: Carefully plan the route considering factors like wind patterns, currents, and hazards. Chart waypoints, estimated arrival times, and alternative routes in case of weather changes.

3. Maintaining a lookout: Assign crew members to constantly watch for approaching vessels, navigational aids, or obstacles. Vigilance prevents collisions and ensures crew and sailboat safety.

4. Schedule watch rotations: Establish a watch schedule to have someone awake and alert on deck at all times. This prevents fatigue, which impairs judgment and reaction times.

5. Communication: Regularly communicate with other crew members on board and shore-based support teams. This ensures clear coordination and smooth operation during the crossing.

Note that navigation and watchkeeping practices may vary depending on the crew’s experience and requirements. Following these practices ensures a safe and successful sailboat crossing of the Atlantic.

In the famous 1998-1999 Vendée Globe solo yacht race, sailor Pete Goss navigated through treacherous conditions while rescuing a fellow competitor in distress. Goss, risking his own race, made a daring detour to save Raphael Dinelli , demonstrating the importance of navigation skills and watchkeeping even in challenging circumstances.

Embarking on a transatlantic sailboat journey? Discover the secrets to shorten your crossing time with these tips and strategies. From picking the optimal season to mapping out the perfect route , we’ll cover it all. Fine-tuning your sail settings and leveraging ocean currents can make a significant difference. So, join us as we delve into the nautical world and uncover the keys to a swift and efficient Atlantic crossing. Let the adventure begin!

1. Choosing the Right Season

When embarking on a sailboat crossing of the Atlantic, it is crucial to carefully select the appropriate season. Factors such as weather conditions and available winds play a significant role in determining the duration and safety of the journey.

1. Optimal Seasons: The most favorable times for an Atlantic crossing are typically spring and fall. During these seasons, there is a higher probability of encountering favorable winds and calmer seas, which greatly facilitates the voyage.

2. Considerations for Summer: Although summer brings warmer temperatures and longer daylight hours, it also coincides with hurricane season in the Atlantic. Sailors must exercise caution and closely monitor weather forecasts to steer clear of perilous storms.

3. Challenges of Winter: Winter is the least desirable season for an Atlantic crossing. The weather tends to be severe, characterized by stronger winds, rougher seas, and a greater potential for storms. Sailing during winter necessitates extensive experience and meticulous planning.

When determining the optimal season, it is essential to take into account the chosen route for the crossing. Different routes may exhibit distinct weather patterns and wind conditions. Therefore, conducting thorough research and seeking guidance from experienced sailors or weather experts is highly recommended.

2. Proper Route Planning

Proper route planning is crucial for a successful sailboat crossing of the Atlantic. Here are the steps to consider:

1. Study weather patterns: Research prevailing winds, ocean currents, and weather conditions along the route. Understanding these factors helps determine the best direction and timing for the crossing.

2. Choose the right departure point: Select a starting location that allows for a smooth transition into the desired route. Consider factors like proximity to favorable winds and currents, and avoiding areas with heavy traffic or bad weather.

3. Consider stopping points: Identify potential stops along the route for rest, provisions, or repairs if needed. These stops break up the journey and provide added safety measures.

4. Evaluate safety and security: Assess the chosen route’s safety and security, considering factors like piracy concerns, proximity to land, rescue resources availability, and communication capabilities.

5. Consult nautical charts and pilot guides: Use accurate and up-to-date charts and guides to plan the specific course, taking into account hazards, shallow areas, and recommended routes.

6. Adapt to changing conditions: Continuously monitor weather forecasts and adjust the route to avoid severe weather or unfavorable winds and currents.

Proper route planning maximizes efficiency and safety for an Atlantic sailboat crossing, allowing sailors to make informed decisions and optimize their journey.

3. Optimizing Sail Settings

1. Optimizing sail settings: Maximizing speed and efficiency during an Atlantic crossing involves optimizing sail settings .

2. Trimming sails: Achieving the optimal balance between power and control requires properly adjusting sail trim .

3. Checking sail shape: To ensure optimal performance , it is important to regularly inspect sail shape .

4. Reefing sails: Maintaining stability and preventing damage when the wind is too strong can be achieved by reducing the surface area of the sails.

5. Using the right sails: Enhancing performance and reducing strain on the boat can be achieved by selecting appropriate sails based on wind strength and direction.

6. Fine-tuning rigging: Improving sail control and stability involves making small adjustments to the rigging .

7. Utilizing sail controls: Optimizing sail shape and performance can be achieved by understanding and utilizing sail controls such as the cunningham , outhaul , and traveler .

8. Monitoring wind conditions: Making timely adjustments to sail settings requires constantly keeping an eye on changes in wind conditions .

9. Anticipating sail changes: Proactively adjusting to maintain optimal sail settings can be achieved by predicting changes in wind strength or direction.

10. Regular maintenance: Ensuring optimal performance throughout the crossing involves keeping sails clean, repairing any damages, and replacing worn-out parts.

4. Utilizing Ocean Currents

1. Research ocean currents: Gather information about prevailing ocean currents in the Atlantic. Understand their flow and strengths in different areas.

2. Plan your route: Incorporate ocean currents into your route planning. Identify areas with favorable currents and plan your course accordingly.

3. Time your departure: Depart when ocean currents align with your route to maximize benefits. Sailing with favorable currents can save time and increase speed.

4. Adjust sail settings: Make sail adjustments based on the direction and strength of ocean currents. Position sails to harness current power and propel the sailboat forward. By utilizing ocean currents effectively, you can enhance your sailing experience.

5. Monitor and adjust course: Continuously monitor ocean currents and make necessary course adjustments to stay within favorable currents . Avoid areas with adverse currents that may slow progress.

6. Utilize eddies and counter-currents: Take advantage of eddies and counter-currents for short-term speed boosts. Use these strategically to enhance progress while utilizing ocean currents.

7. Stay updated on current conditions: Stay informed about any changes in ocean currents along your route. Have up-to-date information to make informed decisions when it comes to utilizing ocean currents.

8. Work with professional weather routers: Consider working with professional weather routers for detailed information on effectively utilizing ocean currents. They can optimize your route and provide insights based on real-time data, allowing you to make the most of ocean currents.

Some Facts About How Long Does It Take A Sailboat To Cross The Atlantic:

✅ An Atlantic crossing on a sailboat takes an average of 20 to 25 days, but can be completed in two weeks with luck, shortcuts, and a fast sailboat.
✅ The best time to sail across the Atlantic is between November and February, as the water is warmer and there is less chance of hurricanes.
✅ The total distance of the crossing can be up to 4,000 nautical miles and the journey is not a straight line, so it can take up to three weeks or more.
✅ The type of boat used and the location can affect the speed of travel. Trade winds play a crucial role in sailing across the Atlantic.
✅ Columbus took two months to cross the Atlantic in 1492, but with advancements in sailing, it now takes about three to four weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: how long does it take to sail across the atlantic using the arch approach.

A: Sailing across the Atlantic using the arch approach can take between three and four weeks, depending on the conditions.

Q: What is the best time to sail from the Caribbean to Europe?

A: Late November is the best time to sail from the Caribbean to Europe to avoid the hurricane season and take advantage of the weather window for crossing the Atlantic.

Q: What are the main routes for crossing the Atlantic?

A: There are two main routes for crossing the Atlantic. The southern passage starts from Southern Spain or the Canary Islands and goes to Cape Verde or the Caribbean. The northern passage starts from the Caribbean and goes to Bermuda, then to the Azores, and finally to Portugal.

Q: What are the essential requirements for successfully crossing the Atlantic on a sailboat?

A: To successfully cross the Atlantic on a sailboat, you need a sturdy boat, durable sails, a GPS, an experienced crew, and knowledge of navigation techniques. It is also important to have spare parts, extra fuel, and proper clothing for the journey.

Q: How does the trade wind system affect sailing across the Atlantic?

A: The trade wind system plays a crucial role in sailing across the Atlantic. These predictable winds blow in the same direction and provide a comfortable ride for sailors, helping them navigate the long journey.

Q: Are there any risks or challenges involved in sailing across the Atlantic?

A: Sailing across the Atlantic can be mentally and physically challenging. Sailors may encounter large waves, severe weather conditions, and the potential risk of collisions. With the right skills, experience, and equipment, these challenges can be managed effectively.

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Sailing Across the Gulf of Mexico Itinerary

The Gulf of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean are made up of small, interconnected ocean basins. These are chains of oceanic islands with varying land areas and topographic elevations. There’s also the isthmus of Central America, which connects North and South America. The region’s diversity allows cruisers to partake in a wide range of activities, and after a week or two, you’ll feel like you’ve been gone much longer. The Gulf of Mexico is a popular sailing destination due to the numerous sailing regions it has. However, you must take precautions before setting sail. This is because of the changing weather patterns, numerous oil rigs, etc. In this article, I will give you information about the Gulf of Mexico, and the safe itinerary you can make in order to explore the most out of it. So, keep reading!

Information about The Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico, which runs between the peninsulas of Florida and Yucatan, is a fantastic destination to visit, live, and sail. The sugar-white sand beaches of the Alabama and Florida Gulf coasts are without a doubt some of the most magnificent on the globe. And, keep in mind that it’s not just another waterway. It’s a complex ecosystem with a long and fascinating history. The Gulf of Mexico not only borders five US states – Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida – but it also borders Cuba and a portion of Mexico.

The Straits of Florida, which run between the Florida peninsula and the island of Cuba, connect it to the Atlantic Ocean. And, the Yucatán Channel, which runs between the Yucatán Peninsula and Cuba, connects it to the Caribbean Sea. Both of these canals have a width of roughly 100 miles. The Gulf of Mexico’s greatest east-west and north-south extents are around 1,100 and 800 miles, respectively. The southern shore of the United States borders it to the northwest, north, and northeast. The east coast of Mexico borders it to the west, south, and southeast.

The coastal zone, continental shelf, continental slope, and abyssal plain are the most important ecological and geologic provinces in the Gulf of Mexico. Sandy beaches, mangrove-covered areas, and several bays, estuaries, and lagoons make up the coastal zone. The continental shelf creates an almost continuous terrace surrounding the gulf’s edge, with a width that ranges from more than 200 miles to less than 25 miles. The continental shelf, which extends from the west coast of Florida to the Yucatán Peninsula, is mostly made up of carbonate material.

>>Also Read: Top Sailing Destinations In The World

What to Be Aware of When Sailing in the Gulf of Mexico

Gulf County is bordered on all sides by various forms of waterways. It has almost 244 miles of beachfront, ranging from pristine waves and white sand beaches to peaceful inland passes. The Gulf of Mexico is easily accessible and offers excellent deep-sea fishing and boating opportunities. The renowned Dead Lakes is home to one of Florida’s most diverse ecosystems. Through Lake Wimico, the Intercoastal Waterway flows east and west. Indian Pass Lagoon is also known for its natural beauty, uncrowded beaches, and excellent fishing.

But, bear in mind that there are two issues with the Gulf of Mexico . Firstly, it is mostly coastal cruising – not so many islands, but an unbelievable number of gas/oil rigs that are major hazards. Secondly, there is little variety in any of the places other than the US coastline. These are from Florida to Texas and Mexico’s coastline from the border to the Yucatan. Still, that’s a lot of new and diverse experiences to choose from. The Caribbean Basin, on the other hand, runs from Cuba to Antigua, south to Trinidad, Venezuela, west to Panama, and north to Mexico.

So, sailing across the Gulf of Mexico has some dangers which you should be aware of before setting sail. Let’s explore a bit of the past and the Gulf’s current weather patterns.

Weather Patterns and Risks in the Gulf of Mexico

Firstly, note that the temperature of the Gulf Coast region climbed from the turn of the century until the 1950s. This is when it began to decrease significantly. Since then, there has been a resumption of a general warming trend . The Gulf Coast region has experienced the most warming in the Southeast of the United States over the previous century. Also, note that much of the warming has happened in winter since the 1950s. Annual precipitation has grown by 20-30% over the same time span. And, the last ten years look to be increasing wetter.

Because of the El Nino, which has caused unusual weather in many regions of the world, 1997 was the warmest year of the century. This applies in terms of land and sea surface temperatures. El Nino has also played a role in the extra moisture on the Gulf Coast. Sea-level rise as a result of melting polar ice and thermal expansion of warmer waters has been one of the most devastating consequences of climate change on Gulf Coast habitats throughout the last century. Sea-level rise has already had considerable effects on coastal communities, and these effects are only expected to worsen.

Apart from the high levels of pollution, the Gulf of Mexico is known for its regular hurricanes. Because it is located in the equatorial region, the Gulf is warmer than other parts of the Atlantic Ocean. This temperature difference creates huge vortices in the air and water, resulting in hurricanes. Hurricanes that originate in the Atlantic Ocean are quickly fueled by the Gulf’s warm climate. They move westward into the US and Mexican mainlands, especially harming Florida and Texas in the US. Hurricane Katrina, which hit the United States in 2005, was a catastrophic meteorological event. The hurricane took many lives and destroyed a lot of property.

Then, there’s the risk of cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico. A tropical cyclone is a rotating, structured system of clouds and thunderstorms. It has a confined low-level circulation that forms over tropical or subtropical oceans. Cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere tend to rotate counterclockwise. Also, tropical cyclones that originate between 5 and 30 degrees latitude usually migrate westward. The winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere can sometimes shift. This makes the cyclone steer to the north and northwest. These cyclones frequently migrate northeast when they reach latitudes near 30 degrees north.

Keep in mind that the Atlantic hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30th, whereas the Eastern Pacific season lasts from May 15 to November 30th . Lastly, note that the Atlantic basin comprises the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Going from East to West or Going Reverse?

Let’s set an example of the neighboring Atlantic Ocean. Surprisingly, sailing across the Atlantic from west to east is often seen as a slower passage. And, this is despite the fact that most records are set in this route. The reason for this is that the west to the east route is often windier, making it ideal for fast-racing sailboats rather than normal sailboats. Passing the Atlantic from east to west for sailing should take 3-4 weeks, depending on the size of your sailboat.

To begin with, if you’re sailing across the Atlantic in a small boat, your journey will take longer. Anything less than 35 feet will likely increase your travel time to roughly 4 weeks and possibly a few days more. Furthermore, the distance between the trough and crest of waves on the open sea will be far longer than what you would ordinarily encounter closer to shore. As the waves pass beneath the smaller boats, they will roll substantially more from side to side.

So, what is best to do? Going from east to west or the other way around? The east-west crossing is unquestionably the most popular. The reason for this is that the westbound trade winds pass over considerably sunnier and warmer latitudes than the eastbound trade winds. There are a few popular east-west routes to choose from. Northern routes are generally shorter and faster, but southern routes are designed for comfort and safety.

>>Also Read: Best Places for Sailing in the US

Sailing from East to West

Despite its serenity and abundance of locations, Florida’s Gulf coast does not appear to attract the same level of attention as the east coast. And perhaps that’s a good thing, as it adds to the region’s allure. The region’s diversity allows cruisers to partake in a wide range of activities, and after a week of sailing, you’ll just want to continue much longer.

Larger cities like Sarasota, Tampa, Naples, and Ft. Myers dot the landscape, which is peppered with hidden jewels like the Little Shark River and the Pine Island Sound. Keep in mind that both the east and west coast of the Gulf of Mexico have many lovely sailing areas and extraordinary places to visit.

So, if you choose to sail from the east to the west your departure points will be from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana. If you’re setting sail from Gulfport, MS, or Mobile, AL note that both have old town vibes and great historic yacht clubs. Also, Pensacola Bay offers excellent fishing and snorkeling/diving opportunities. On both sides of the bay, there are two historic forts worth visiting. Destin and Panama City, located further east on the panhandle, have gorgeous beaches and interior bays.

If you want to sail from Pensacola (FL), Panama City (FL), or Mobile (AL) to Cancun, note that going around Texas is a really long route to take. You’ll see a few platforms near to shore as you leave Mobile Bay and head south, but they’re simple to avoid. Even so, there’s a good chance you won’t run into one. The thing to be concerned about in the Gulf is inclement weather, especially if you get caught in the loop current and the wind is blowing against the current .

The coast and inland waterways of Alabama and the Florida panhandle are both stunning, as are the barrier islands off the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama. Alabama and Florida’s inland bays are fantastic. Louisiana boasts lovely parts of the ICW, and most sailors love the places there. Lake Pontchartrain is a great way to get to New Orleans, which is known for its food and alcohol. Port Aransas is a popular sport fishing destination. Texas has numerous beautiful spots to explore, and Galveston is a charming old town. You can sail south to Padre Island, which has beautiful waters and beaches. Also excellent Mexican cuisine. Even if there are many oil patch locations, drillships/platforms get fewer and farther between, and they are well lit.

>>Also Read: Is It Dangerous to Sail in the Caribbean?

Proposed Routes from the East to the West

Some travel right across the Gulf to Isla Mujeres, a little island off the Yucatan’s northwestern coast. If you take this route, make sure you know where the loop current is before you set sail, or you’ll end yourself bucking a 3-knot current in the incorrect direction. Another option is to sail down Florida’s west coast to Key West, then to the Dry Tortugas, and finally to Isla Mujeres.

Alternatively, you can follow the coast (or ICW) to Brownsville, Texas, and then along the Mexican coast around the Yucatan to Cancun . Progreso Mexico, the port area for the city of Merida and all the nearby Mayan pyramid monuments, is a must-see area. When the weather permits, you can, of course, take shortcuts outside. If not, use the ICW.

You might want to set sail from Pensacola directly to Yucatan . Note that in order to avoid the loop current, head east for a few miles before turning south and crossing back to Isla Mujeres in the last 50 miles. In 93 hours, you’ll have covered over 600 miles. You might not even notice oil platforms if you go this route. If you’re worried about that consider leaving from Mobile, and head east to Pensacola first. It’s a fantastic route, and Isla is a fantastic destination. Don’t forget to check the Gulf pilot charts for the time of year you wish to travel.

Lastly, note that the typical route from Brownsville south is El Mezquital to La Pesca and to Tampico . Then you can continue south to Heroica Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche, and Merida.

Sailing from West to East

Note that the Mexican mainland’s east coast (not including the Yucatan) is not particularly inviting. So, cruisers rarely visit this area. The Texas coast isn’t much better. Both are oil patch locations that have been industrialized. There are a few exceptions along the way, such as Rockport and Port Aransas, Texas. As you travel east, the oil patch thins out and becomes very sparse by the time you reach the Gulf of Mississippi and Alabama. There is no offshore drilling in Florida, hence there is no oil patch. Many sailors state that the best cruising in the Gulf of Mexico begins at the western end of the Mississippi Sound and extends all the way to the Florida Keys.

Southern Louisiana, particularly the Barataria Waterway area, is very interesting, but it’s best explored with a small sailboat. Note that the Waterway Guide covers the whole Gulf of Mexico coast’s Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway. Except for the “big bend” (Apalachicola) in Florida, the ICW traverses the length of the Gulf of Mexico coast. Individual cruising guides exist for specific sections of the Gulf, but most of them are outdated. For the Texas Coast, check Claiborne Young’s Guides and Campbells.

Note that when it comes to cruising, there’s a difference in how “islands” are defined. For example, barrier islands along coastlines and continuous islands (such as the Keys) are certainly “islands,” as is the entire eastern United States. This is because the east coast may be circumnavigated by water up and west to the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi to the Gulf, and back to the east coast.

The thing about the West to East route is that even if it has some beautiful spots along the shoreline, there are hundreds of miles of ugly industrialized shallow coast. Apart from the weather hazards and some areas with shallow bottoms, there are lots of fishing boats and oil platforms.

However, you shouldn’t rule out the north and west coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Also, the further you get from the coast, the fewer and farther apart the oil platforms become, as well as the larger and brighter they become. The most dangerous are the small old platforms near the coast.

There is nice cruising from Mississippi Sound to the Keys, but you won’t find the Western Caribbean’s gorgeous seas and reefs there (except in the Keys & Dry Tortugas). With the exception of the leap around Apalachicola, which is just an overnight run, all of the places along that coast are only a day’s sail away.

Places you Can Visit Along the Crossing

About 70 miles west of Key West lie the Dry Tortugas. It is a National Park System and it’s uninhabited. The Florida Keys are another option. On Florida’s west coast, there are many more islands. Several uninhabited tiny islands off the coast of Alabama. Also, Horn Island, Deer Island, East Ship Island, Ship Island, and Cat Island are all located on the Mississippi coast. They’re all deserted, and the majority of them are part of the National Park System.

The Mississippi Coast is barely 25 to 30 miles long. The Chandeleur Islands, located west of Mississippi, are noted for their excellent fishing. These are located approximately 25 miles off the coast of Gulfport, Mississippi. There is a significant diversity of sceneries from the Dry Tortugas to the Florida Keys and north several hundred miles and over 1000 miles of shoreline on the northern coast to roughly 600 miles due south over open water to the Yucatan Peninsula.

Sailing from the West Coast of Florida

So, if your starting point is the West Coast of Florida you have 2 main options. Firstly, you can sail directly to Mexico and stop in Cuba if you have the time. Or, you can sail across the Gulf from Florida to Texas and include some stopover locations. As long as the wind and weather cooperate, you can set sail and travel east to Florida. Bear in mind that September 1st is the peak of hurricane season. They can develop up in the Caribbean Sea instead of the Atlantic, giving you far less time to perform evasive maneuvers.

If you’re driving down the Florida coast south of Tarpon Springs, there are plenty of spots to stop. However, there are none for sailboats north of Tarpon Springs. At least, none that don’t require you to precisely time the tide. However, the panhandle is not included.

Between Mobile and Carrabelle, the ICW comes to a halt at Carrabelle and resumes at Tarpon Springs, and there are various sites to make landfall there. Furthermore, even if the wind or weather is against you on the outside, you can still make headway along the ICW. Another advantage is that once you’re in Florida waters, so there are no rigs. The current from Key West to Cancun, however, can be a risk. Lastly, bridge heights can be a concern if your boat is taller than 48 feet. Along the Florida panhandle, there are only a few that are 49 and 50 feet long. Note that this route goes from west to east.

Sailing Safety Tips When Sailing Across the Gulf of Mexico

Always be aware of the weather patterns. Before you go out on the ocean, check the weather and tides. And, check it again before you leave if you haven’t already. Checking the tides not only saves our marine life and seagrass from prop damage, but it also keeps you from running aground if the water is too shallow. There are excellent weather resources to utilize while planning your voyage in the Gulf.
Always keep in mind the nautical rules. Keep a proper lookout and respect the buoys and other navigational aids that have been established to guarantee your safety as well as the safety of the local wildlife and other boaters.
It’s important not to forget to get dressed in layers. You don’t want to become cold if the air picks up on the water, even if it’s warm on land. So, be ready for changes in the weather. During long journeys out on the sea, layering can also aid provide additional sun protection.
Always have a boat safety kit, a first-aid kit, and enough provisions. You can’t always predict when an emergency may occur, so be ready for everything. Always make sure your boat is equipped with the necessary safety gear. It’s preferable to have it and not need it than to require it and not have it. Pack twice as much food and water as you think you’ll need. As you may know, sailing can make you really hungry and thirsty.
It’s important to make use of your common sense. Meaning that you should maintain a safe speed at all times (particularly in congested locations), don’t be in a rush, and dock your boat when the weather isn’t in your favor. You should also stay away from large vessels and crafts with limited stopping and turning capabilities.
Keep proper docking practices in mind. If you land too quickly, you risk damaging your boat, the dock, another vessel, or even injuring yourself. If things aren’t going well, don’t be afraid to step back, relax, or seek assistance.

Sailing Across the Gulf of Mexico Itinerary – The Bottom Line

As you can see, sailing across the Gulf of Mexico involves a variety of options when it comes to routes. You can either sail from the east to the west or the reverse. Many sailors choose to sail from the west coast of Florida while others depart from Texas sail directly to Yucatan or along the shoreline. Another popular route starts from Pensacola (FL) to Isla Mujeres or from Mobile (AL) to Cancun. There are many routes that you can take but it’s up to you which one to choose. The route you’re going to choose depends on the available time you have, the places you want to visit, and the distances you can cross.

The most important thing to keep in mind is to thoroughly check the weather, avoid the hurricane season, and have a seaworthy vessel. In the Gulf, weather patterns can change rapidly. Cyclones, strong currents, and winds are things you should definitely avoid. Also, as there are many oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico as well as high levels of pollution pick the route that has the least of them. Apart from these drawbacks, the Gulf has amazing sailing areas (and anchorages), pure and untouched nature, and welcoming towns and villages. So, all you have to do is research, plan your route, and set sail for your Gulf of Mexico voyage!

Peter is the editor of Better Sailing. He has sailed for countless hours and has maintained his own boats and sailboats for years. After years of trial and error, he decided to start this website to share the knowledge.

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St. Patrick's Day in Savannah: Everything you need to know for the 2024 parade, celebration

Grab anything and everything green! St. Patrick's Day is nearing.

The 2024 St. Patrick's Day parade in Savannah marks the 200th anniversary of the celebration.

“We’re so excited for our 200th, what this means for our city,” Mayor Van Johnson said. “And, in classic Savannah fashion, we’re gonna celebrate like no one has ever celebrated before. As a matter of fact, we told New York they better watch themselves because Savannah might have the biggest celebration in this country this year.”

For Savannahians preparing for the big day or visitors coming to town for the party, here's everything you need to know about this year's festivities.

Whoa! Budweiser Clydesdales will return to Savannah for St. Patrick's Day. Here is where to see them

'Brilliant!' and other ways to speak authentic leprechaun lingo for St. Patrick’s Day

When is the 2024 St. Patrick's Day parade in Savannah?

The St. Patrick's Day parade falls on March 16 this year, with the actual holiday falling on a Sunday. The route, which can be found HERE , will start at East Gwinnett and Abercorn streets before heading north on Abercorn all the way to Broughton Street. The route then turns east to East Broad where it will head north to Bay Street. Once on Bay Street, the parade will head west it hits Savannah City Hall, where it will then turn south and take Bull Street to Madison Square, the parade's end.

The parade starts at 10:15 a.m.

Here are answers to parade FAQs:

Where are public restrooms during the St. Patrick's Day parade?
Where can I park for the parade?
Where are the best places to watch the parade?
Are shuttles and buses running on parade day? What about CAT buses?

The History of the Savannah St. Patrick's Day parade

The 2024 parade marks the 200th anniversary of this Savannah event.

The celebration of Irish culture has grown from its 1824 gathering to a major annual tourist attraction, with thousands flocking to the city in March.

A historical marker honoring the parade was unveiled and blessed on Feb. 24 , just prior to a ceremonial walking of the original parade route.

Photos from previous St. Patrick's Day parades

To see Savannah Morning News photos from various years, check out the galleries below.

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Taiwan warns Chinese ships to turn around immediately

T aiwan warned Chinese coastguard ships to “turn around immediately” after they entered restricted waters near its frontline islands for a second day in a row.

Taiwan’s coastguard said four Chinese coastguard boats on Saturday morning entered the restricted waters of the Kinmen Islands, which hug the Chinese coast. It said the Chinese boats stayed just over an hour after Taiwan authorities asked them to leave.

China claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, over the island’s strong objections. It has stepped up military activities near Taiwan in recent years, with almost daily incursions into air defence identification zones.

“You have entered our country’s restricted waters. Please turn around immediately,” a Taiwan official said via radio in a broadcast message to their Chinese counterparts, according to footage released on Saturday by Taiwan’s coastguard.

The footage shows a Taiwan coastguard boat tracking the movement of two Chinese ships in the near distance.

“The move has seriously impacted traffic and safety. To avoid triggering naval incidents we urge them to stop such behaviours,” Taiwan’s coastguard said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from China’s coastguard, which does not have publicly available contact details.

China’s coastguard conducted patrols near the Kinmen Islands on Friday as well, with four Chinese coastguard boats being warned away by their Taiwanese counterparts, according to Taiwan’s official Central News Agency.

Last month, China’s coastguard began regular patrols around Kinmen, after two Chinese nationals died while trying to flee Taiwan’s coastguard after their boat entered prohibited waters.

Taiwan dispatched coastguard boats on Thursday to join a rescue mission at China’s request after a Chinese fishing vessel capsized near the Kinmen Islands. Taiwan’s government has stressed the importance of co-operation between Taiwan and China amid the heightened tensions.

On Friday, Taiwan also sent several boats at China’s request to help search for a Chinese fisherman who went overboard near the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands , in the northern end of the Taiwan Strait.

A senior Taiwan security official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters that Beijing is sending out “confusing” messages by continuing its harassment of Taiwan, while also asking for Taipei’s assistance on dealing with maritime incidents.

The official said the latest moves by the Chinese coastguard in Kinmen “did not carry substantial security threats” but complicated the situation there.

“We are clueless,” the official said. “We tried to save their fishermen yesterday and today they are baring their teeth and claws.”

Last week, Taiwan’s top China policy-making body urged its giant neighbour not to change the “status quo” in waters near Kinmen by sending coastguard boats into restricted areas.

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Taiwan coastguard using radio to urge Chinese vessels to leave, on Saturday - TAIWAN COASTGUARD/REUTERS

Americans know little about how their seafood is sourced.

Much of it comes from a vast fleet of Chinese ships.

On board, human-rights abuses are rampant.

The Crimes Behind the Seafood You Eat

China has invested heavily in an armada of far-flung fishing vessels, in part to extend its global influence. This maritime expansion has come at grave human cost.

Daniel Aritonang graduated from high school in May, 2018, hoping to find a job. Short and lithe, he lived in the coastal village of Batu Lungun, Indonesia, where his father owned an auto shop. Aritonang spent his free time rebuilding engines in the shop, occasionally sneaking away to drag-race his blue Yamaha motorcycle on the village’s back roads. He had worked hard in school but was a bit of a class clown, always pranking the girls. “He was full of laughter and smiles,” his high-school math teacher, Leni Apriyunita, said. His mother brought homemade bread to his teachers’ houses, trying to help him get good grades and secure work; his father’s shop was failing, and the family needed money. But, when Aritonang finished high school, youth unemployment was above sixteen per cent. He considered joining the police academy, and applied for positions at nearby plastics and textile factories, but never got an offer, disappointing his parents. He wrote on Instagram, “I know I failed, but I keep trying to make them happy.” His childhood friend Hengki Anhar was also scrambling to find work. “They asked for my skills,” he said recently, of potential employers. “But, to be honest, I don’t have any.”

At the time, many villagers who had taken jobs as deckhands on foreign fishing ships were returning with enough money to buy motorcycles and houses. Anhar suggested that he and Aritonang go to sea, too, and Aritonang agreed, saying, “As long as we’re together.” He intended to use the money to fix up his parents’ house or maybe to start a business. Firmandes Nugraha, another friend, worried that Aritonang was not cut out for hard labor. “We took a running test, and he was too easily exhausted,” he said. But Aritonang wouldn’t be dissuaded. A year later, in July, he and Anhar travelled to the port city of Tegal, and applied for work through a manning agency called PT Bahtera Agung Samudra. (The agency seems not to have a license to operate, according to government records, and did not respond to requests for comment.) They handed over their passports, copies of their birth certificates, and bank documents. At eighteen, Aritonang was still young enough that the agency required him to provide a letter of parental consent. He posted a picture of himself and other recruits, writing, “Just a bunch of common folk who hope for a successful and bright future.”

This piece was published in collaboration with the Outlaw Ocean Project .

For the next two months, Aritonang and Anhar waited in Tegal for a ship assignment. Aritonang asked Nugraha to borrow money for them, saying that the pair were struggling to buy food. Nugraha urged him to come home: “You don’t even know how to swim.” Aritonang refused. “There’s no other choice,” he wrote, in a text. Finally, on September 2, 2019, Aritonang and Anhar were flown to Busan, South Korea, to board what they thought would be a Korean ship. But when they got to the port they were told to climb aboard a Chinese vessel—a rusty, white-and-red-keeled squid ship called the Zhen Fa 7.

That day, the ship set out across the Pacific.

Aritonang had just joined what may be the largest maritime operation the world has ever known.

In the past few decades, partly in an effort to project its influence abroad, China has dramatically expanded its distant-water fishing fleet. Chinese firms now own or operate terminals in ninety-five foreign ports. China estimates that it has twenty-seven hundred distant-water fishing ships, though this figure does not include vessels in contested waters; public records and satellite imaging suggest that the fleet may be closer to sixty-five hundred ships. (The U.S. and the E.U., by contrast, have fewer than three hundred distant-water fishing vessels each.) Some ships that appear to be fishing vessels press territorial claims in contested waters, including in the South China Sea and around Taiwan. “This may look like a fishing fleet, but, in certain places, it’s also serving military purposes,” Ian Ralby, who runs I.R. Consilium, a maritime-security firm, told me. China’s preëminence at sea has come at a cost. The country is largely unresponsive to international laws, and its fleet is the worst perpetrator of illegal fishing in the world, helping drive species to the brink of extinction. Its ships are also rife with labor trafficking, debt bondage, violence, criminal neglect, and death. “The human-rights abuses on these ships are happening on an industrial and global scale,” Steve Trent, the C.E.O. of the Environmental Justice Foundation, said.

It took a little more than three months for the Zhen Fa 7 to cross the ocean and anchor near the Galápagos Islands. A squid ship is a bustling, bright, messy place. The scene on deck looks like a mechanic’s garage where an oil change has gone terribly wrong. Scores of fishing lines extend into the water, each bearing specialized hooks operated by automated reels. When they pull a squid on board, it squirts warm, viscous ink, which coats the walls and floors. Deep-sea squid have high levels of ammonia, which they use for buoyancy, and a smell hangs in the air. The hardest labor generally happens at night, from 5 P.M. until 7 A.M. Hundreds of bowling-ball-size light bulbs hang on racks on both sides of the vessel, enticing the squid up from the depths. The blinding glow of the bulbs, visible more than a hundred miles away, makes the surrounding blackness feel otherworldly. “Our minds got tested,” Anhar said.

The captain’s quarters were on the uppermost deck; the Chinese officers slept on the level below him, and the Chinese deckhands under that. The Indonesian workers occupied the bowels of the ship. Aritonang and Anhar lived in cramped cabins with bunk beds. Clotheslines of drying socks and towels lined the walls, and beer bottles littered the floor. The Indonesians were paid about three thousand dollars a year, plus a twenty-dollar bonus for every ton of squid caught. Once a week, a list of each man’s catch was posted in the mess hall to encourage the crew to work harder. Sometimes the officers patted the Indonesian deckhands on their heads, as though they were children. When angry, they insulted or struck them. The foreman slapped and punched workers for mistakes. “It’s like we don’t have any dignity,” Anhar said.

The ship was rarely near enough to land to get cell reception, and, in any case, most deckhands didn’t have phones that would work abroad. Chinese crew members were occasionally allowed to use a satellite phone on the ship’s bridge. But when Aritonang and other Indonesians asked to call home the captain refused. After a couple of weeks on board, a deckhand named Rahman Finando got up the nerve to ask whether he could go home. The captain said no. A few days later, another deckhand, Mangihut Mejawati, found a group of Chinese officers and deckhands beating Finando, to punish him for asking to leave. “They beat his whole body and stepped on him,” Mejawati said. The other deckhands yelled for them to stop, and several jumped into the fray. Eventually, the violence ended, but the deckhands remained trapped on the ship. Mejawati told me, “It’s like we’re in a cage.”

Almost a hundred years before Columbus, China dominated the seas. In the fifteenth century, China’s emperor dispatched a fleet of “treasure ships” that included warships, transports for cavalry horses, and merchant vessels carrying silk and porcelain to voyage around the Indian Ocean. They were some of the largest wooden ships ever built, with innovations like balanced rudders and bulwarked compartments that predated European technology by centuries. The armada’s size was not surpassed until the navies of the First World War. But during the Ming dynasty political instability led China to turn inward. By the mid-sixteenth century, sailing on a multi-masted ship had become a crime. In docking its fleet, China lost its global preëminence. As Louise Levathes, the author of “ When China Ruled the Seas ,” told me, “The period of China’s greatest outward expansion was followed by the period of its greatest isolation.”

For most of the twentieth century, distant-water fishing—much of which takes place on the high seas—was dominated by the Soviet Union, Japan, and Spain. But the collapse of the U.S.S.R., coupled with expanding environmental and labor regulations, caused these fleets to shrink. Since the sixties, though, there have been advances in refrigeration, satellite technology, engine efficiency, and radar. Vessels can now stay at sea for more than two years without returning to land. As a result, global seafood consumption has risen fivefold.

Squid fishing, or jigging, in particular, has grown with American appetites. Until the early seventies, Americans consumed squid in tiny amounts, mostly at niche restaurants on the coasts. But as overfishing depleted fish stocks the federal government encouraged fishermen to shift their focus to squid, whose stocks were still robust. In 1974, a business-school student named Paul Kalikstein published a master’s thesis asserting that Americans would prefer squid if it were breaded and fried. Promoters suggested calling it “calamari,” the Italian word, which made it sound more like a gourmet dish. (“Squid” is thought to be a sailors’ variant of “squirt,” a reference to squid ink.) By the nineties, chain restaurants across the Midwest were serving squid. Today, Americans eat a hundred thousand tons a year.

China launched its first distant-water fishing fleet in 1985, when a state-owned company called the China National Fisheries Corporation dispatched thirteen trawlers to the coast of Guinea-Bissau. China had been fishing its own coastal waters aggressively. Since the sixties, its seafood biomass has dropped by ninety per cent. Zhang Yanxi, the general manager of the company, argued that joining “the ranks of the world’s offshore fisheries powers” would make the country money, create jobs, feed its population, and safeguard its maritime rights. The government held a grand farewell ceremony for the launch of the first ships, with more than a thousand attendees, including Communist Party élites. A promotional video described the crew as “two hundred and twenty-three brave pioneers cutting through the waves.”

Since then, China has invested heavily in its fleet. The country now catches more than five billion pounds of seafood a year through distant-water fishing, the biggest portion of it squid. China’s seafood industry, which is estimated to be worth more than thirty-five billion dollars, accounts for a fifth of the international trade, and has helped create fifteen million jobs. The Chinese state owns much of the industry—including some twenty per cent of its squid ships—and oversees the rest through the Overseas Fisheries Association. Today, the nation consumes more than a third of the world’s fish.

China’s fleet has also expanded the government’s international influence. The country has built scores of ports as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure program that has, at times, made it the largest financier of development in South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. These ports allow it to shirk taxes and avoid meddling inspectors. The investments also buy its government influence. In 2007, China loaned Sri Lanka more than three hundred million dollars to pay for the construction of a port. (A Chinese state-owned company built it.) In 2017, Sri Lanka, on the verge of defaulting on the loan, was forced to strike a deal granting China control over the port and its environs for ninety-nine years.

Military analysts believe that China uses its fleet for surveillance. In 2017, the country passed a law requiring private citizens and businesses to support Chinese intelligence efforts. Ports employ a digital logistics platform called Logink , which tracks the movement of ships and goods in the surrounding area—including, possibly, American military cargo. Michael Wessel, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told me, “This is really dangerous information for the U.S. to be handing over.” (The Chinese Communist Party has dismissed these concerns, saying, “It is no secret that the U.S. has become increasingly paranoid about anything related to China.”)

China also pushes its fleet into contested waters. “China likely believes that, in time, the presence of its distant-water fleet will convert into some degree of sovereign control over those waters,” Ralby, the maritime-security specialist, told me. Some of its ships are disguised as fishing vessels but actually form what experts call a “maritime militia.” According to research collected by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Chinese government pays the owners of some of these ships forty-five hundred dollars a day to remain in contested areas for most of the year. Satellite data show that, last year, several dozen ships illegally fished in Taiwanese waters and that there were two hundred ships in disputed portions of the South China Sea. The ships help execute what a recent Congressional Research Service study called “ ‘gray zone’ operations that use coercion short of war.” They escort Chinese oil-and-gas survey vessels, deliver supplies, and obstruct foreign ships.

Sometimes these vessels are called into action. In December, 2018, the Filipino government began to repair a runway and build a beaching ramp on Thitu Island, a piece of land claimed by both the Philippines and China. More than ninety Chinese ships amassed along its coast, delaying the construction. In 2019, a Chinese vessel rammed and sank a Filipino boat anchored at Reed Bank, a disputed region in the South China Sea that is rich in oil reserves. Zhou Bo, a retired Chinese senior colonel, recently warned that these sorts of clashes could spark a war between the U.S. and China. (The Chinese government declined to comment on these matters. But Mao Ning, a spokesperson for its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has previously defended her country’s right to uphold “China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime order.”) Greg Poling, a senior fellow at C.S.I.S., noted that taking ownership of contested waters is part of the same project as assuming control of Taiwan. “The goal with these fishing ships is to reclaim ‘lost territory’ and restore China’s former glory,” he said.

China’s distant-water fleet is opaque. The country divulges little information about its vessels, and some stay at sea for more than a year at a time, making them difficult to inspect. I spent the past four years, backed by a team of investigators working for a journalism nonprofit I run called the Outlaw Ocean Project, visiting the fleet’s ships in their largest fishing grounds: near the Galápagos Islands; near the Falkland Islands; off the coast of the Gambia; and in the Sea of Japan, near the Korean Peninsula. When permitted, I boarded vessels to talk to the crew or pulled alongside them to interview officers by radio. In many instances, the Chinese ships got spooked, pulled up their gear, and fled. When this happened, I trailed them in a skiff to get close enough to throw aboard plastic bottles weighed down with rice, containing a pen, cigarettes, hard candy, and interview questions. On several occasions, deckhands wrote replies, providing phone numbers for family back home, and then threw the bottles back into the water. The reporting included interviews with their family members, and with two dozen additional crew members.

China bolsters its fleet with more than seven billion dollars a year in subsidies, as well as with logistical, security, and intelligence support. For instance, it sends vessels updates on the size and location of the world’s major squid colonies, allowing the ships to coördinate their fishing. In 2022, I watched about two hundred and sixty ships jigging a patch of sea west of the Galápagos. The armada suddenly raised anchor and, in near simultaneity, moved a hundred miles to the southeast. Ted Schmitt, the director of Skylight, a maritime-monitoring program, told me that this is unusual: “Fishing vessels from most other countries wouldn’t work together on this scale.” In July of that year, I pulled alongside the Zhe Pu Yuan 98, a squid ship that doubles as a floating hospital to treat deckhands without bringing them to shore. “When workers are sick, they will come to our ship,” the captain told me, by radio. The boat typically carried a doctor and maintained an operating room, a machine for running blood tests, and videoconferencing capabilities for consulting with doctors back in China. Its predecessor had treated more than three hundred people in the previous five years.

In February, 2022, I went with the conservation group Sea Shepherd and a documentary filmmaker named Ed Ou, who also translated on the trip, to the high seas near the Falkland Islands, and boarded a Chinese squid jigger there. The captain gave permission for me and a couple of my team members to roam freely as long as I didn’t name his vessel. He remained on the bridge but had an officer shadow me wherever I went. The mood on the ship felt like that of a watery purgatory. The crew was made up of thirty-one men; their teeth were yellowed from chain-smoking, their skin sallow, their hands torn and spongy from sharp gear and perpetual wetness. The scene recalled an observation of the Scythian philosopher Anacharsis, who divided people into three categories: the living, the dead, and those at sea.

When squid latched on to a line, an automated reel flipped them onto a metal rack. Deckhands then tossed them into plastic baskets for sorting. The baskets often overflowed, and the floor filled shin-deep with squid. The squid became translucent in their final moments, sometimes hissing or coughing. (Their stink and stain are virtually impossible to wash from clothes. Sometimes crew members tie their dirty garments into a rope, up to twenty feet long, and drag it for hours in the water behind the ship.) Below deck, crew members weighed, sorted, and packed the squid for freezing. They prepared bait by carving squid up, separating the tongues from inside the beaks. In the galley, the cook noted that his ship had no fresh fruits or vegetables and asked whether we might be able to donate some from our ship.

We spoke to two Chinese deckhands who were wearing bright-orange life vests. Neither wanted his name used, for fear of retaliation. One man was twenty-eight, the other eighteen. It was their first time at sea, and they had signed two-year contracts. They earned about ten thousand dollars a year, but, for every day taken off work because of sickness or injury, they were docked two days’ pay. The older deckhand recounted watching a fishing weight injure another crew member’s arm. At one point, the officer following us was called away. The older deckhand then said that many of the crew were being held there against their will. “It’s like being isolated from the world and far from modern life,” he said. “Many of us had our documents taken. They won’t give them back. Can we ask you to help us?” He added, “It’s impossible to be happy, because we work many hours every day. We don’t want to be here, but we are forced to stay.” He estimated that eighty per cent of the other men would leave if they were allowed.

Looking nervous, the younger deckhand waved us into a dark hallway. He began typing on his cell phone. “I can’t disclose too much right now given I still need to work on the vessel, if I give too much information it might potentially create issues on board,” he wrote. He gave me a phone number for his family and asked me to contact them. “Can you get us to the embassy in Argentina?” he asked. Just then, my minder rounded the corner, and the deckhand walked away. Minutes later, my team members and I were ushered off the ship.

When I returned to shore, I contacted his family. “My heart really aches,” his older sister, a math teacher in Fujian, said, after hearing of her brother’s situation. Her family had disagreed with his decision to go to sea, but he was persistent. She hadn’t known that he was being held captive, and felt helpless to free him. “He’s really too young,” she said. “And now there is nothing we can do, because he’s so far away.”

In June, 2020 , the Zhen Fa 7 travelled to a pocket of ocean between the Galápagos and mainland Ecuador. The ship was owned by Rongcheng Wangdao Deep-Sea Aquatic Products, a midsize company based in Shandong. On board, Aritonang had slowly got used to his new life. The captain found out that he had mechanical experience and moved him to the engine room, where the work was slightly less taxing. For meals, the cook prepared pots of rice mixed with bits of fish. The Indonesians were each issued two boxes of instant noodles a week. If they wanted any other food—or coffee, alcohol, or cigarettes—the cost could be deducted from their salaries. Crew photos show deckhands posing with their catch and gathering for beers to celebrate.

One of Aritonang’s friends on board was named Heri Kusmanto. “When we boarded the ship in the first weeks, Heri was a lively person,” Mejawati said. “He chatted, sang, and joked with all of us.” Kusmanto’s job was to carry hundred-pound baskets of squid down to the refrigerated hold. He sometimes made mistakes, and that earned him beatings. “He did not dare fight back,” a deckhand named Fikran told me. “He would just stay quiet and stand still.” The ship’s cook often struck Kusmanto, so he avoided him by eating plain white rice in the kitchen when the cook wasn’t around. Kusmanto soon got sick. He lost his appetite and stopped speaking, communicating mostly through gestures. “He was like a toddler,” Mejawati said. Then Kusmanto’s legs and feet swelled and started to ache.

Kusmanto seemed to be suffering from beriberi, a disease caused by a deficiency of Vitamin B 1 , or thiamine. Its name derives from a Sinhalese word, beri , meaning “weak” or “I cannot.” It is often caused by a diet consisting mainly of white rice, instant noodles, or wheat flour. Symptoms include tingling, burning, numbness, difficulty breathing, lethargy, chest pain, dizziness, confusion, and severe swelling. Like scurvy, beriberi was common among nineteenth-century sailors. It also has a history in prisons, asylums, and migrant camps. If untreated, it can be fatal.

Beriberi is becoming prevalent on Chinese vessels in part because ships stay so long at sea, a trend facilitated by transshipment, which allows vessels to offload their catch to refrigerated carriers without returning to shore. Chinese ships typically stock rice and instant noodles for extended trips, because they are cheap and slow to spoil. But the body requires more B 1 when carbohydrates are consumed in large amounts and during periods of intense exertion. Ship cooks also mix rice or noodles with raw or fermented fish, and supplement meals with coffee and tea, all of which are high in thiaminase, which destroys B 1 , exacerbating the issue.

Beriberi is often an indication of conditions of captivity, because it is avoidable and easily reversed. Some countries (though not China) mandate that rice and flour be supplemented with B 1 . The illness can also be treated with vitamins, and when B 1 is administered intravenously patients typically recover within twenty-four hours. But few Chinese ships seem to carry B 1 supplements. In many cases, captains refuse to bring sick crew members to shore, likely because the process would entail losing time and incurring labor costs. Swells can make it dangerous for large ships to get close to each other in order to transfer crew members. One video I reviewed shows a man being put inside a fishing net and sent hundreds of feet along a zip line, several stories above the open ocean, to get on another ship. My team and I found two dozen cases of workers on Chinese vessels between 2013 and 2021 who suffered from symptoms associated with beriberi; at least fifteen died. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist in Washington, D.C., told me that allowing workers to die from beriberi would, in the U.S., constitute criminal neglect. “Slow-motion murder is still murder,” he said.

The contract typically used by Kusmanto’s manning agency stipulated heavy financial penalties for workers and their families if they quit prematurely. It also allowed the company to take workers’ identity papers, including their passports, during the recruitment process, and to keep the documents if they failed to pay a fine for leaving early—provisions that violate laws in the U.S. and Indonesia. Still, as Kusmanto’s condition worsened, his Indonesian crewmates asked whether he could go home. The captain refused. (Rongcheng Wangdao denied wrongdoing. The captains of Chinese ships in this piece could not be identified for comment. A spokesman for the manning agency blamed Kusmanto for his illness, writing, “When on the ship, he didn’t want to take a shower, he didn’t want to eat, and he only ate instant noodles.”)

The ship may have been fishing illegally at the time, possibly complicating Kusmanto’s situation.

During this period, according to an unpublished intelligence report compiled by the U.S. government, the Zhen Fa 7 turned off its location transponder several times, in violation of Chinese law. This generally occurred when the ship was close to Ecuadorian and Peruvian waters; captains often go dark to fish in other countries’ waters, like those of Ecuador, where Chinese ships are typically forbidden.

On June 21st, the ship disappeared for eight days, between Peruvian and Ecuadorian waters.

On July 28th, it disappeared for fifteen days, near the Galápagos.

On August 14th, it disappeared again, near Ecuadorian waters.

“Short of catching them in the act, this is as close as you can get to firm evidence,” Michael J. Fitzpatrick, the U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador, told me. (Rongcheng Wangdao’s vessels have been known to fish in unauthorized areas; one of the Zhen Fa 7’s sister ships was fined for unlawfully entering Peruvian waters in 2017, and another was found illicitly fishing off the coast of North Korea. The company declined to comment on this matter.) Transferring Kusmanto to another vessel would have required disclosing the Zhen Fa 7’s location, which might have been incriminating.

By early August, Kusmanto had become disoriented. Other deckhands demanded that he be given medical attention. Eventually, the captain relented, and transferred him to another ship, which carried him to port in Lima. He was taken to a hospital, where he recovered; afterward, he was flown home. (Kusmanto could not be reached for comment.) Meanwhile, the rest of the crew, which had by then been at sea for a year, felt a growing sense of isolation. “They had initially told us that we would be sailing for eight months, and then they would land the ship,” Anhar said. “The fact was we never landed anywhere.”

China does more illegal fishing than any other country, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Operating on the high seas is expensive, and there is virtually no law-enforcement presence—which encourages fishing in forbidden regions and using prohibited techniques to gain a competitive advantage. Aggressive fishing comes at an environmental cost. A third of the world’s stocks are overfished. Squid stocks, once robust, have declined dramatically. More than thirty countries, including China, have banned shark finning, but the practice persists. Chinese ships often catch hammerhead, oceanic whitetip, and blue sharks so that their fins can be used in shark-fin soup. In 2017, Ecuadorian authorities discovered at least six thousand illegally caught sharks on board a single reefer. Other marine species are being decimated, too. Vessels fishing for totoaba, a large fish whose swim bladder is highly prized in Chinese medicine, use nets that inadvertently entangle and drown vaquita porpoises, which live only in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. Researchers estimate that, as a result, there are now only some ten vaquitas left in existence. China has the world’s largest fleet of bottom trawlers, which drag nets across the seafloor, levelling coral reefs. Marine sediment stores large amounts of carbon, and, according to a recent study in Nature , bottom trawlers release almost a billion and a half tons of carbon dioxide each year—as much as that released by the entire aviation industry. China’s illicit fishing practices also rob poorer countries of their own resources. Off the coast of West Africa, where China maintains a fleet of hundreds of ships, illegal fishing has been estimated to cost the region more than nine billion dollars a year.

The world’s largest concentration of illegal fishing ships may be a fleet of Chinese squidders in North Korean waters. In 2017, in response to North Korea’s nuclear- and ballistic-missile tests, the United Nations Security Council, with apparent backing from China, imposed sanctions intended to deprive Kim Jong Un’s government of foreign currency, in part by blocking it from selling fishing rights, a major source of income. But, according to the U.N., Pyongyang has continued to earn foreign currency—a hundred and twenty million dollars in 2018 alone—by granting illicit rights, predominantly to Chinese fishermen. An advertisement on the Chinese Web site Zhihu offers permits issued by the North Korean military for “no risk high yield” fishing with no catch limits: “Looking forward to a win-win cooperation.” China seems unable or unwilling to enforce sanctions on its ally.

Chinese boats have contributed to a decline in the region’s squid stock; catches are down by roughly seventy per cent since 2003. Local fishermen have been unable to compete. “We will be ruined,” Haesoo Kim, the leader of an association of South Korean fishermen on Ulleung Island, which I visited in May, 2019, said. North Korean fishing captains have been forced to head farther from shore, where their ships get caught in storms or succumb to engine failure, and crew members face starvation, freezing temperatures, and drowning. Roughly a hundred small North Korean fishing boats wash up on Japanese shores annually, some of them carrying the corpses of fishermen. Chinese boats in these waters are also known for ramming patrol vessels. In 2016, Chinese fishermen rammed and sank a South Korean cutter in the Yellow Sea. In another incident, the South Korean Coast Guard opened fire on more than two dozen Chinese ships that rushed at its vessels.

In 2019, I went with a South Korean squid ship to the sea border between North Korea and South Korea. It didn’t take us long to find a convoy of Chinese squidders headed into North Korean waters. We fell in alongside them and launched a drone to capture their identification numbers. One of the Chinese captains blared his horn and flashed his lights—warning signs in maritime protocol. Since we were in South Korean waters and at a legal distance, our captain stayed his course. The Chinese captain then abruptly cut toward us, on a collision trajectory. Our captain veered away when the Chinese vessel was only thirty feet off.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told me that “China has consistently and conscientiously enforced the resolutions of the Security Council relating to North Korea,” and added that the country has “consistently punished” illegal fishing. But the Ministry neither admitted nor denied that China sends boats into North Korean waters. In 2020, the nonprofit Global Fishing Watch used satellite data to reveal that hundreds of Chinese squid ships were routinely fishing in North Korean waters. By 2022, China had cut down this illegal armada by seventy-five per cent from its peak. Still, in unregulated waters, the hours worked by the fleet have increased, and the size of its catch has only grown.

Shortly after New Year’s Day, 2021, the Zhen Fa 7 rounded the tip of South America and stopped briefly in Chilean waters, close enough to shore to get cell-phone reception. Aritonang went to the bridge and, through pantomime and broken English, asked one of the officers whether he could borrow his phone. The officer indicated that it would cost him, rubbing his forefinger and thumb together. Aritonang ran below deck, sold some of his cigarettes and snacks to other deckhands, borrowed whatever money he could, and came back with the equivalent of about thirteen dollars, which bought him five minutes. He dialled his parents’ house, and his mother answered, excited to hear his voice. He told her that he would be home by May and asked to speak to his father. “He’s resting,” she told him. In fact, he had died of a heart attack several days earlier, but Aritonang’s mother didn’t want to upset her son while he was at sea. She later told their pastor that she was looking forward to Aritonang’s return. “He wants to build a house for us,” she said.

Soon afterward , the ship dropped anchor in the Blue Hole, an area near the Falkland Islands, where ongoing territorial disputes between the U.K. and Argentina provide a gap in maritime enforcement that ships can exploit. Aritonang grew homesick, staying in his room and eating mostly instant noodles. “He seemed to become sad and tired,” Fikran said. That January, Aritonang fell ill with beriberi. The whites of his eyes turned yellow, and his legs became swollen. “Daniel was in pretty bad shape,” Anhar told me. The captain refused to get him medical attention. “There was still a lot of squid,” Anhar said. “We were in the middle of an operation.” In February, the crew unloaded their catch onto a reefer that carried it to Mauritius. But, for reasons that remain unclear, the captain refused to send Aritonang to shore as well.

Eventually , Aritonang could no longer walk. The Indonesian crew went to the bridge again and confronted the captain, threatening to strike if he didn’t get Aritonang medical help. “We were all against the captain,” Anhar said. Finally, the captain acquiesced, and, on March 2nd, transferred Aritonang to a fuel tanker, the Marlin, which agreed to carry him to Montevideo, Uruguay. The Marlin’s crew brought him to a service area off the coast, where a skiff picked him up and took him to the port. A maritime agency representing Rongcheng Wangdao in Uruguay called a local hospital, and ambulance workers took him there.

Jesica Reyes, who is thirty-six, is one of the few interpreters of Indonesian in Montevideo. She taught herself the language while working at an Internet café that was popular among Indonesian crews; they called her Mbak, meaning “Miss” or “big sister.” From 2013 to 2021, fishing ships, most of them Chinese, disembarked a dead body in Montevideo roughly every month and a half. Over a recent dinner, Reyes told me about hundreds of deckhands in need whom she had assisted. She described one deckhand who died from a tooth infection because his captain wouldn’t bring him to shore. She told me of another ailing deckhand whose agency neglected to take him to a hospital, keeping him in a hotel room while his condition deteriorated; he eventually died.

On March, 7, 2021, Reyes was asked by the maritime agency to go to the emergency room to help doctors communicate with Aritonang; she was told that he had a stomach ache. When he arrived at the hospital, however, his whole body was swollen, and she could see bruises around his eyes and neck. He whispered to her that he had been tied by the neck. (Other deckhands later told me that they hadn’t seen this happen, and were unsure when he sustained the injuries.) Reyes called the maritime agency and said, “If this is a stomach ache . . . You’re not looking at this young man. He is all messed up!” She took photographs of his condition, before doctors asked her to stop, because she was alarmed.

In the emergency room, physicians administered intravenous fluids. Aritonang, crying and shaking, asked Reyes, “Where are my friends?” He whispered, “I’m scared.” Aritonang was pronounced dead the following morning. “I was angry,” Reyes told me. The deckhands I reached were furious. Mejawati said, “We really hope that, if it’s possible, the captain and all the supervisors can be captured, charged, or jailed.” Anhar, Aritonang’s best friend, found out about his death only after disembarking from the Zhen Fa 7 in Singapore, that May. “We were devastated,” he said, of the crew members. When we reached him, he was still carrying a suitcase full of Aritonang’s clothes that he’d promised to take home for him.

Fishing is one of the world’s deadliest jobs—a recent study estimates that more than a hundred thousand workers die every year—and Chinese ships are among the most brutal. Recruiters often target desperate men in inland China and in poor countries. “If you are in debt, your family has shunned you, you don’t want to be looked down on, turn off your phone and stay far away from land,” an online advertisement in China reads. Some recruits are lured with promises of lucrative contracts, according to court documents and investigations by Chinese news outlets, only to discover that they incur a series of fees—sometimes amounting to more than a month’s wages—to cover expenses such as travel, job training, crew certifications, and protective workwear. Often, workers pay these fees by taking out loans from the manning agencies, creating a form of debt bondage. Companies confiscate passports and extract fines for leaving jobs, further trapping workers. And even those who are willing to risk penalties are sometimes in essence held captive on ships.

For a 2022 report, the Environmental Justice Foundation interviewed more than a hundred Indonesian crew members and found that roughly ninety-seven per cent had their documents confiscated or experienced debt bondage. Occasionally, workers in these conditions manage to alert authorities. In 2014, twenty-eight African workers disembarked from a Chinese squidder called the Jia De 1, which was anchored in Montevideo, and several complained of beatings on board and showed shackle marks on their ankles. Fifteen crew members were hospitalized. (The company that owned the ship did not respond to requests for comment.) In 2020, several Indonesian deckhands reportedly complained about severe beatings at sea and the presence of a man’s body in one of the ship’s freezers. An autopsy revealed that the man had sustained bruises, scarring, and a spinal injury. Indonesian authorities sentenced several manning-agency executives to more than a year in prison for labor trafficking. (The company did not respond to requests for comment.)

In China, these labor abuses are an open secret. A diary kept by one Chinese deckhand offers an unusually detailed glimpse into this world. In May, 2013, the deckhand paid a two-hundred-dollar recruitment fee to a manning agency, which dispatched him to a ship called the Jin Han Yu 4879. The crew were told that their first ten days or so on board would be a trial period, after which they could leave, but the ship stayed at sea for a hundred and two days. “You are slaves to work anytime and anywhere,” the deckhand wrote in his diary. Officers were served meat at mealtimes, he said, but deckhands got only bones. “The bell rings, you must be up, whether it is day, night, early morning, no matter how strong the wind, how heavy the rain, there are no Sundays and holidays.” (The company that owns the ship did not respond to requests for comment.)

The broader public in China was forced to reckon with the conditions on ships when the crew of a squid jigger called the Lu Rong Yu 2682 mutinied, in 2011. The captain, Li Chengquan, was a “big, tall, and bad-tempered man” who, according to a deckhand, gave a black eye to a worker who angered him. Rumors began circulating that the seven-thousand-dollar annual salary that they had been promised was not guaranteed. Instead, they would earn about four cents per pound of squid caught—which would amount to far less. Nine crew members took the captain hostage. In the next five weeks, the ship’s crew devolved into warring factions. Men disappeared at night, a crew member was tied up and tossed overboard, and someone sabotaged a valve on the ship, which started letting water in. The crew eventually managed to restore the ship’s communications system and transmit a distress signal, drawing two Chinese fishing vessels to their aid. Only eleven of the original thirty-three men made it back to shore. The lead mutineer and the ship’s captain were sentenced to death by the Chinese government. (The company that owns the ship did not respond to requests for comment.)

Labor trafficking has also been documented on American, South Korean, and Thai boats. But China’s fleet is arguably the worst offender, and it has done little to curb violations. Between 2018 and 2022, my team found, China gave more than seventeen million dollars in subsidies to companies where at least fifty ships seem to have engaged in fishing crimes or had deaths or injuries on board—some of which were likely the result of unsafe labor conditions. (The government declined to comment on this matter, but Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently said that the fleet operates “in accordance with laws and regulations,” and accused the U.S. of politicizing “issues that are about fisheries in the name of environmental protection and human rights.”)

In the past few years, China has made a number of reforms, but they seem aimed more at quelling dissent than at holding companies accountable. In 2017, after a Filipino worker died in a knife fight with some of his Chinese crewmates, the Chinese government created a Communist Party branch in Chimbote, Peru—the first for fishing workers—intended to bolster their “spiritual sustenance.” Local police in some Chinese cities have begun using satellite video links to connect to the bridges of some Chinese vessels. In 2020, when Chinese crew members on a ship near Peru went on strike, the company contacted the local police, who explained to the workers that they could come ashore in Peru and fly back to China, but they would have to pay for the plane tickets. “Wouldn’t it feel like losing out if you resigned now?” a police officer asked. The men returned to work.

As I reported on these ships, stories of violence and captivity surfaced even when I wasn’t looking for them. This year, I received a video from 2020 in which two Filipino crew members said that they were ill but were being prevented from leaving their ship. “Please rescue us,” one pleaded. “We are already sick here. The captain won’t send us to the hospital.” Three deckhands died that summer; at least one of their bodies was thrown overboard. (The manning agency that placed these workers on the ship, PT Puncak Jaya Samudra, did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the company that owns the ship.) On a trip to Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2020, I met a half-dozen young men who told me that, in 2019, a young deckhand named Fadhil died on their ship because the officers had refused to bring him to shore. “He was begging to return home, but he was not allowed,” Ramadhan Sugandhi, a deckhand, said. (The ship-owning company did not respond to requests for comment, nor did his manning agency, PT Shafar Abadi Indonesia.) This past June, a bottle washed ashore near Maldonado, Uruguay, containing what appeared to be a message from a distressed Chinese deckhand. “Hello, I am a crew member of the ship Lu Qing Yuan Yu 765, and I was locked up by the company,” it read. “When you see this paper, please help me call the police! S.O.S. S.O.S.” (The owner of the ship, Qingdao Songhai Fishery, said that the claims were fabricated by crew members.)

Reyes, the Indonesian translator, put me in touch with Rafly Maulana Sadad, an Indonesian who, while working on the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 978 two years ago, fell down a flight of stairs and broke his back. He immediately went back to work pulling nets, then fainted, and woke up in bed. The captain refused to take him to shore, and he spent the next five months on the ship, his condition worsening. Sadad’s friends helped him eat and bathe, but he was disoriented and often lay in a pool of his own urine. “I was having difficulty speaking,” Sadad told me last year. “I felt like I’d had a stroke or something. I couldn’t really understand anything.” In August, 2021, the captain dropped Sadad off in Montevideo, and he spent nine days in the hospital, before being flown home. (Requests for comment from Rongcheng Rongyuan, which owns the ship Sadad worked on, and PT Abadi Mandiri International, his manning agency, went unanswered.) Sadad spoke to me from Indonesia, where he could walk only with crutches. “It was a very bitter life experience,” he said.

Like the boats that supply them, Chinese processing plants rely on forced labor. For the past thirty years, the North Korean government has required citizens to work in factories in Russia and China, and to put ninety per cent of their earnings—amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars—into accounts controlled by the state. Laborers are often subjected to heavy monitoring and strictly limited in their movements. U.N. sanctions ban such uses of North Korean workers, but, according to Chinese government estimates, last year as many as eighty thousand North Korean workers were living in one city in northeastern China alone. According to a report by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, at least four hundred and fifty of them were working in seafood plants. The Chinese government has largely scrubbed references to these workers from the Internet. But, using the search term “North Korean beauties,” my team and I found several videos on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, that appear to show female seafood-plant workers, most posted by gawking male employees. One Chinese commenter observed that the women “have a strong sense of national identity and are self-disciplined!” Another argued, however, that the workers have no choice but to obey orders, or “their family members will suffer.”

In the past decade, China has also overseen a crackdown on Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, a region in northwestern China, setting up mass detention centers and forcing detainees to work in cotton fields, on tomato farms, and in polysilicon factories. More recently, in an effort to disrupt Uyghur communities and find cheap labor for major industries, the government has relocated millions of Uyghurs to work for companies across the country. Workers are often supervised by security guards, in dorms surrounded by barbed wire. By searching company newsletters, annual reports, and state-media stories, my team and I found that, in the past five years, thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been sent to work in seafood-processing plants. Some are subjected to “patriotic education”; in a 2021 article, local Party officials said that members of minority groups working at one seafood plant were a “typical big family” and were learning to deepen their “education of ethnic unity.” Laura Murphy, a professor at Sheffield Hallam University, in the U.K., told me, “This is all part of the project to erase Uyghur culture, identities, religion, and, most certainly, their politics. The goal is the complete transformation of the entire community.” (Chinese officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Uyghur and North Korean forced labor in the nation’s seafood-processing industry.)

The U.S. has strict laws forbidding the importation of goods produced with North Korean or Uyghur labor. The use of such workers in other industries—for example, in solar-panel manufacturing—has been documented in recent years, and the U.S. has confiscated a billion dollars’ worth of imported products as a result. We found, however, that companies employing Uyghurs and North Koreans have recently exported at least forty-seven thousand tons of seafood, including some seventeen per cent of all squid sent to the U.S. Shipments went to dozens of American importers, including ones that supply military bases and public-school cafeterias. “These revelations pose a very serious problem for the entire seafood industry,” Martina Vandenberg, the founder and president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center, told me.

China does not welcome reporting on this industry. In 2022, I spent two weeks on board the Modoc, a former U.S. Navy boat that the nonprofit Earthrace Conservation uses as a patrol vessel, visiting Chinese squid ships off the coast of South America. As we were sailing back to a Galápagos port, an Ecuadorian Navy ship approached us, and an officer said that our permit to reënter Ecuadorian waters had been revoked. “If you do not turn around now, we will board and arrest you,” he said. He told us to sail to another country. We didn’t have enough food and water for the journey. After two days of negotiations, we were briefly allowed into the port, where armed Ecuadorian officers boarded; they claimed that the ship’s permits had been filed improperly and that our ship had deviated slightly in its approved course while exiting national waters. Such violations typically result in nothing more than a written citation. But, according to Ambassador Fitzpatrick, the explanation was a bit more complicated. He said that the Chinese government had contacted several Ecuadorian lawmakers to raise concerns about the presence of what they depicted as a quasi-military vessel engaging in covert operations. When I spoke with Juan Carlos Holguín, the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister at the time, he denied that China was involved. But Fitzpatrick told me that Quito treads carefully when it comes to China, in part because Ecuador is deeply in debt to the country. “China did not like the Modoc,” he said. “But mostly it did not want more media coverage on its squid fleet.”

The day of Aritonang’s death , Reyes filed a report with the Uruguayan Coast Guard, and showed officers her photographs. “They seemed pretty uninterested,” she said. The following day, a local coroner conducted an autopsy. “A situation of physical abuse emerged,” the report reads. I sent it to Weedn, the forensic pathologist, who told me that the body showed signs of violence and that untreated beriberi seems to have been the cause of death. Nicolas Potrie, who runs the Indonesian consulate in Montevideo, remembered getting a call from Mirta Morales, the prosecutor who investigated Aritonang’s case. “We need to continue trying to figure out what happened. These marks—everybody saw them,” Potrie recalled her saying. (A representative for Rongcheng Wangdao said that the company had found no evidence of misconduct on the ship: “There was nothing regarding your alleged appalling incidents about abuse, violation, insults to one’s character, physical violence or withheld salaries.” The company said that it had handed the matter over to the China Overseas Fisheries Association. Questions submitted to the association went unanswered.)

Potrie pressed for further inquiry, but none seemed forthcoming. Morales declined to share any information about the case with me. In March of 2022, I visited Aldo Braida, the president of the Chamber of Foreign Fishing Agents, which represents companies working with foreign vessels in Uruguay, at his office in Montevideo. He dismissed the accounts of mistreatment on Chinese ships that dock in the port as “fake news,” claiming, “There are a lot of lies around this.” He told me that, if crew members whose bodies were disembarked in Montevideo had suffered physical abuse, Uruguayan authorities would discover it, and that, when you put men in close quarters, fights were likely to break out. “We live in a violent society,” he said.

Uruguay has little incentive to scrutinize China further, because the country brings lucrative business to the region. In 2018, for example, a Chinese company that had bought a nearly seventy-acre plot of land west of Montevideo presented a plan to build a more than two-hundred-million-dollar “megaport.” Local media reported that the port would be a free-trade zone and include half-mile-long docks, a shipyard, a fuelling station, and seafood storage and processing facilities. The Uruguayan government had been pursuing such Chinese investment for years. The President at the time, Tabaré Vázquez, attempted to sidestep the constitution, which requires a two-thirds vote by both chambers of the General Assembly, and authorize construction of the port by executive order. “There’s so much money on the table that politicians start bending the law to grab at it,” Milko Schvartzman, a marine researcher based in Argentina, told me. But, following resistance from the public and from opposition parties, the plan was called off.

The seafood industry is difficult to police. A large portion of fish consumed in the U.S. is caught or processed by Chinese companies. Several laws exist to prevent the U.S. from importing products tainted by forced labor, including that which is involved in the production of conflict diamonds and sweatshop goods. But China is not forthcoming with details about its ships and processing plants. At one point, on a Chinese ship, a deckhand showed me stacks of frozen catch in white bags. He explained that they leave the ship names off the bags so that they can be easily transferred between vessels. This practice allows seafood companies to hide their ties to ships with criminal histories. On the bridge of another ship, a Chinese captain opened his logbook, which is supposed to document his catch. The first two pages had notations; the rest were blank. “No one keeps those,” he said. Company officials could reverse engineer the information later. Kenneth Kennedy, a former manager of the anti-forced-labor program at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that the U.S. government should block seafood imports from China until American companies can demonstrate that their supply chains are free of abuse. “The U.S. is awash with criminally tainted seafood,” he said.

These companies included retail chains such as Costco, Kroger, H Mart, and Safeway.

They also included food-service distributors like Sysco and Performance Food Group, each servicing hundreds of thousands of restaurants and cafeterias at colleges, hotels, hospitals, and government buildings. (These companies did not respond to requests for comment.)

It’s likely that some of the squid Aritonang died catching ended up on an American plate.

To document the gaps in the system, we followed the supply chain to show where squid tainted by worker abuse might end up.

First, we tracked the Zhen Fa 7 by satellite, from 2018 to 2022.

During that time, it transferred its catch to seven refrigerated reefers.

We then tracked the journey of one reefer, the Lu Rong Yuan Yu Yun 177, to China’s Shidao port.

It is especially difficult to document where the catch goes once it gets to port. Arduous in-person tracking is sometimes the only way to follow its movements.

We hired private investigators in China to track a shipment of squid from the Lu Rong Yuan Yu Yun 177. They hid in their car at the port, filming at a distance as workers unloaded the squid and then packed it into trucks.

They followed the trucks out of the port.

The trucks eventually arrived at a seafood facility owned by a company called Rongcheng Xinhui Aquatic Products.

We also reviewed the ownership details of the other reefers that transshipped with the Zhen Fa 7 and found that its squid likely ended up at five additional processing plants in China.

Two of these plants, owned by Chishan Group, have employed at least a hundred and seventy workers transferred from Xinjiang, according to local news reports and corporate newsletters on the company’s Web site. (A representative from Rongcheng Haibo, one of the plants, said that the company “has never employed any Xinjiang workers.” A representative from Shandong Haidu, the other plant, said, “There is no use of illegal workers from Xinjiang or other countries, and we recently passed human-rights audits.” Chishan Group did not respond to requests for comment.)

The plants connected to the Zhen Fa 7 then sent large quantities of their seafood to at least sixty-two American importers.

On April 22nd, Aritonang’s body was flown from Montevideo to Jakarta, then driven, in a wooden casket with a Jesus figurine on top, to his family home in Batu Lungun. Villagers lined the road to pay their respects; Aritonang’s mother wailed and fainted upon seeing the casket.

A funeral was soon held, and Aritonang was buried a few feet from his father, in a cemetery plot not far from his church. His grave marker consisted of two slats of wood joined to make a cross. That night, an official from Aritonang’s manning agency visited the family at their home to discuss what locals call a “peace agreement.” Anhar said that the family ended up accepting a settlement of some two hundred million rupiah, or roughly thirteen thousand dollars. Family members were reluctant to talk about the events on the ship. Aritonang’s brother Beben said that he didn’t want his family to get in trouble and that talking about the case might cause problems for his mother. “We, Daniel’s family, have made peace with the ship people and have let him go,” he said.

Last year, thirteen months after Aritonang’s death, I spoke again to his family by video chat. His mother, Regina Sihombing, sat on a leopard-print rug in her living room with her son Leonardo. The room had no furniture and no place to sit other than the floor. The house had undergone repairs with money from the settlement, according to the village chief; in the end, it seems, Aritonang had managed to fix up his parents’ home after all. When the conversation turned to him, his mother began to weep. “You can see how I am now,” she said. Leonardo told her, “Don’t be sad. It was his time.” ♦

This piece was produced with contributions from Joe Galvin, Maya Martin, Susan Ryan, Austin Brush, and Daniel Murphy.

More on China’s Seafood Industry

Read “ Inside North Korea’s Forced-Labor Program in China ,” new reporting about the North Koreans sent to work in Chinese factories, in conditions of captivity, to make money for their government.

Read “ The Uyghurs Forced to Process the World’s Fish ,” an investigation into China’s forced-labor practices.

Watch “ Squid Fleet ,” a film that offers a close look at the gruelling work of squid fishing.

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