11 days ago
Topic:
Looking for information about the Azores
Arnd.Wussing
|
Greetings! I'm a new member to the OCC and am currently sailing with a friend on a Leopard 4600 catamaran. We are 4 days out enroute from St. Kitts & Nevis to Horta in the Azores. This is my first offshore trip on a catamaran, and it is quite different from sailing my monohull. We had to heave-to for a half day due to a storm and missed our nice weather window for a fast passage, and now it looks like we'll be arriving sometime around the 4th of June.
Neither of us has been to the Azores before and any information would be appreciated. |
11 days ago
Topic:
Looking for information about the Azores
Arnd.Wussing
|
Hello Simon and thanks for the response. I wasn't sure how to go about contacting someone, so thought I'd post the question here. I'm really enjoying the connectivity of a Starlink system while offshore, which lets me do real-time weather and tasks such as writing here. I'll get in touch with José to get local information. |
9 days ago
Topic:
Looking for information about the Azores
Arnd.Wussing
|
Thanks for all the replies so far - they are very interesting indeed! I have to return to the "real world" shortly upon arrival, but Lincoln, the boat owner and skipper, is planning on exploring the islands before heading onwards. Perhaps I'll get a chance to do so when I sail my boat across, but since I'm an EU citizen and the boat is not VAT paid, I'm waiting until it depreciates a bit more before doing that.
We finally managed to catch some wind, our speed is no longer 3 knots but 8 knots, so the distant Azores seem so much closer already...
I don't use a Smarphone, and have looked at the main website to find José's contact information, but have failed to do so. Is it only available on an App? |
4 days ago
Topic:
Looking for information about the Azores
Arnd.Wussing
|
Hello Simon, I dropped José an e-mail on Saturday and haven't yet heard back. But we finally reached the halfway point from St. Kitts today, so there's still a while to go before we get there. I read that the ARC is underway from Bermuda, so I'll assume that Horta will get busy by the time we drift in. So far, it has been light winds and slow going. At least this catamaran is large and comfortable, and we have ample supplies, although we just consumed our last fruit and potatoes as they were in danger of going bad. I'm surprised at the amount of traffic visible on AIS out here; on my passages to and from the Caribbean from the U.S. northeast, there was a lot less. |
3 days ago
Topic:
Sweden shore power
Arnd.Wussing
|
Dick wrote:
...
That sounds like a nice feature of your inverter-charger: what kind is it?..
My past 2 boats had various Victron models of inverter/chargers, which all allow a nifty feature of limiting the shore power draw. If the boat loads exceed the set limit, the remaining power is drawn through the inverter. This is a great feature in Europe, but I've used it in the USA and Caribbean as well to limit the charging speed when the battery bank is depleted; this prevents any heat buildup that happens with high charge rates.
edited by Arnd.Wussing on 29/05/2025 |
3 days ago
Topic:
Looking for information about the Azores
Arnd.Wussing
|
I just heard from friends that the anchorage is quite full and that they are rafting 4-deep ashore in Horta. There are still about 30 ARC-Europe boats heading there, all of them 700NM or less out. We're still at 1000, so we'll arrive after them and are currently thinking of continuing onwards and clearing in at Ponta Delgada. |