Information on the South Atlantic crossing in 1982/83

[MichaelGab]

Dear everyone,

My name is Michael, and I'm a French novelist looking for information about a sailing trip across the South Atlantic around 1982/83.

As I've heard that many yachts made this crossing, mainly from Brazil to South Africa, and as I want my main character to be on board on such a boat, I was wondering if you could help me find out some details. Specifically, I'd like to know what types of yachts made this voyage back then, how long it took, what unusual events might have occurred, what tasks an amateur sailor like my character might have performed on board, etc.

If you could help me, that would be great. If not, could you point me in a better direction? In any case, I would be very grateful to you for your time and effort.

Very cordially,

Michael

 

[Ted]

You should also post this inquiry to Cruisers & Sailing Forums There are many long time world cruisers that hang out there and may be able to help you.

 

[MichaelGab]

You should also post this inquiry to Cruisers & Sailing Forums There are many long time world cruisers that hang out there and may be able to help you.

Thank you for the tip. I just created a thread there.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Michael, in 1986-ish I made a similar crossing with my bride of two years aboard my father's Shannon 50. We sailed into Villamora, Portugal, and I was walking down the dock towards the land when a sailor in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, jumped off his forty to forty-three foot sloop and went running down the dock with an excited whoop. He got only a few strides away when he spun around and raced back to his boat, grabbed the bow leaning just over the dock, and he leaned in and kissed his boat before tearing off towards land again. His boat was registered in, and flew a flag from Brazil.

Most sailors would have been aboard a sloop, many a ketch, a very few might have been aboard a yawl or a schooner. There were a tiny handfull of catamarans, but they were a pretty new concept. We met a fellow in Gibraltar aboard a forty-five foot catamaran. He had a whole wall filled with cassette tapes of old radio shows aboard.

The boats would be anywhere from 38 to 50 feet in length, but there were sailors crossing in boats as small as 30 to 35 feet, and possibly up to 65 feet if they were wealthy. A single-hander would be in a 35 to 43 foot sloop or ketch. The ketch was more desirable for the smaller main sail size. It made handling by a lone person easier. Most of those choices had their trade-offs, smaller lighter rigging vs more sails to handle. Most would be epoxy resin and fiberglass, but there were still a lot of wooden boats on the water. Many mixed the two, glass hulls with wooden trim and decking.

The early 1980s was an interesting time in yacht design transition. America lost the America's cup in 1983 to Australia II and their controversial wing keel. It wasn't long before wing keels started showing up on boats from racing sloops to world cruisers. The all plastic boat, or "Clorox bottles", as we use to call them in the 70s, were just getting to be ubiquitous. Ocean sailing was different, though. Tradition and proven designs dominate, for good reason.

Good luck with writing your story. I hope to read it some day. Don't make the mistakes I've seen other authors make about sailing, a sloop only has one mast, and a racing sailboat can only outpace a non-racing sailboat of similar size and class. No one escapes the police on a sailboat . Sorry, I've just read these images in other's works before. These kinds of mistakes are so fundamental I lose interest in the story when I read these things. But you've joined SBO, where you will learn from all the best sailors.

-Will

 

[Foswick]

Some general advice is that a few things will not have changed and are not specific to that timeframe. Sailors don't sail the South Atlantic often, and that route/direction would be especially rare. You are unlikely to find many people who have sailed that route. It is MUCH more common to go the other way.

Between about Salvador and Montenegro, winds are pretty variable all year. And the southeast trade blow pretty reliably to the northwest above Cape Town. To go east, you need to follow the coast far enough south to duck under the South Atlantic High, making Rio your most likely jumping off point for the generally safest route. This requires you to stay far enough south to benefit from the Westerlies, without getting "too" into the Westerlies, which can be pretty serious. But, you can't go too far north or risk no wind at all in the South Atlantic High.

From a story writer's perspective, this gives you some options. A little too far north or south gives you some opportunities.

A more adventuresome route would be to go all the way to the Falklands then to the South Sandwich Islands. This gives you a place to wait for the perfect weather window to jump back onto the Westerlies and on to Cape Town. This means a quick ride because you are well into the Westerlies, that far south. But, the Westerlies are no joke.

If your characters are recreational cruisers, they would not be wise to go that route. But, people do race sailboats down there. It is possible.

With either route, I think you are looking for a summer passage (between about mid-November to about mid-May). Either route will take in the neighborhood of a month, but that is HIGHLY variable.

The main problems they would have encountered, aside from normal equipment failures, food spoilage, etc, would be: dead zones (no wind) in the South Atlantic High, or unexpectedly heavy winds and waves from the Westerlies.

As for what they would have sailed ... that really depends on who they are. In general, folks sailed shorter boats than people think they need nowadays. It would have been relatively unusual to find a serious cruiser sailing anything longer than 36 feet, and virtually unheard of to sail something longer than about 42 feet. For SURE longer sailboats existed. They just weren't popular amongst cruisers. Anything longer than about 42 feet was still considered a luxury yacht - at least for crossing oceans.

Another thing that has changed is that, during that period and especially in that area, you were more likely to see steel or ferrocement sailboats, and those tended toward slightly longer ... maybe?

You might look at an Albin Vega 27 as being on the shorter end of what would have been likely, a Westsail 32 for being a likely size, and a Whitby 42 for being on the extreme. Of course, depending on the characters, they could have done it in a 24' boat, or virtually no upward limit.

If you gave us a little information about how many people are onboard, their approximate budget (economical, middle-class, or wealthy) and why they are crossing (recreation, racing, smuggling, etc.) that would help narrow it down.

 

[dLj]

I previously responded on Cruisers and Sailors so I won't repeat that here. I agree with the above, you should give us a bit more info on how the book you wish to write may be framed.

The Europe to Brasil to Cape Town to further East has been the traditional sailing route for many, many years. It's a whole lot easier (and faster) than dropping down and going around Cape horn and into the Pacific....

dj

 

[jssailem]

In that time window, venturing near the Falklands would have put you near the conflict events of 1982 between the British and Argentine Navy’s over the possession of the islands.

 

[Foswick]

In that time window, venturing near the Falklands would have put you near the conflict events of 1982 between the British and Argentine Navy’s over the possession of the islands.

Good point. Could be good or bad for the story.