Viking Route Atlantic Crossing will now be a West to East and not an East to West passage as originally planned, and will start from Florida on June 15th 2019, departing the Americas from St. John, Newfoundland mid July. As the date gets closer I am working on route planning and studying the weather patterns for the most challenging leg that is St. John to Reikjavik with a possible stopover in the tip of Greenland. In fact this leg looks very good at this time of the year with a total of 1500 NM, very favorable winds and current and a passage time of about 8 days (without the stopover). At this time of the year the typical Cape Hatteras lows are infrequent, instead some lows are formed around Labrador and typically move N-NE towards Greenland, in which case our route would meet the lows on its most favorable SE quadrant. Once in Reikjavik we will start a clockwise 2 week circumnavigation/exploration of coastal Iceland, and will have a van with a tour guide meet us at every port for exploring inland. In this manner we will get to know stunning Iceland fully. From Eastern Iceland it will be a short hop to the Faroes for a week of exploration, another short hop to the scottish isles for another week of exploration and then South to the Med with stopovers in Ireland and Galicia Spain, arriving there mid September, in time for an Arc Return to the America's or for wintering in the Med.
If anybody is interested in joining let me know as we could expand this project into a Hylas Viking Route Rally!
Fair winds! Alberto
Shaima the Blue, 2019 - haha