The Best Ways to Cross the Atlantic Ocean
Community
Dec 12, 2025
Time to Cross the Atlantic Ocean
It’s prime time to cross the Atlantic. Each year, as hurricane season ends and the winter trades begin to settle in, cruisers set their sights on the open ocean. The SeaPeople map has been lighting up recently, with an incredible number of sailors making their way across the Atlantic. And with that comes a wave of questions: the best weather windows, which routes to choose, and how to track every mile.
Let’s take a look at what’s happening out there, where people are headed, and who in the SeaPeople community is currently crossing or has just completed their passage.
Banner photo by SeaPeople user @fakturasailing
From the Canary Islands to Grenada
📍Grenada
"Mike and I have sailed from Bonifacio to Las Palmas then joined the Arc+Rally to Grenada via Cape Verde. What a blast it has been. Today 3rd December is our last sunset in the Atlantic as we arrive at 0100 in Grenada."
- Jeff Gordon
From the Canary Islands to Martinique
📍Grande Anse des Salines, Sainte-Anne, Martinique
"After an amazing crossing, the first two of five yachts of the 2025 FluxAhoi Transatlantic Flotilla have arrived. Being right on time we treated ourselves to a couple of nights in a beautiful anchorage in Martinique!
What an amazing passage with amazing people that I sincerely hope to see again very soon. Embracing the spirit of sailing and what it truly means to be a team. Our boat held up spectacularly! Apart from a ripped spinnaker and some debris in the tank (not the boats fault) we did not have a single failure worth mentioning in over 4000nm. And we arrived with 60% diesel left in our tanks!"
- Felix Hackenberg
From Cape Verde to Saint Martin
📍Saint Martin
"At 500 miles from St Martin, we were motor sailing because we had a failure in the stitching on our mainsail. We had it restitched in Spain, and apparently, they didn’t do a good job, so it ripped in half. Just before that happened, our steel cable Genoa halyard snapped, sending our Genoa down into the water. The force of it getting dragged in the water also bent the base of our Genoa furler. We managed to recover the Genoa from the water and are working on straightening out the base of the furler so that we can hoist it again and get there a little faster. The force of that sail going into the water also snapped both forward lifelines on the port side.
At the moment, we have our staysail up and are motoring efficiently at 6.5 kts straight to our destination. The steel Genoa halyard is the ONLY piece of running or standing rigging that was not replaced on this boat in Spain because, according to our rigger “there was NO way this steel cable could break”. At this speed we should arrive in St. Martin at 11 pm on Sunday, or If we raise the Genoa, possibly a few hours earlier."
- Peter Fougerousse
From Cape Verde to Barbados
📍Barbados
"I could not have asked for a better crossing, waves were though, squalls got really intense at the end, but we kept the moral high and the beer supply low. the hardest part for me was keeping up with sleep, since I had the working nightmares every night - night shifts were okay, meals were great."
- Gabriella Carias
Cape Town to St Helena to Fernando de Noronha to Antigua
📍Freeman's bay, English Harbour, Antigua and Barbuda
A 28-day passage from South Africa to St Helena, on to Fernando de Noronha in Brazil, and finally to Antigua!
With so many catamarans being built in South Africa, this trip has become a trial by fire for a lot of new boat owners. But the rewards? Huge. It's a very long trip from South Africa to the Caribbean, but it also affords a chance to make stops in St Helena and Fernando. Two places most sailors will never see.
With a new boat, the shakedown period is critical before taking off on a crossing of this magnitude. The pro's over at Outer Passage make it look easy. Just remember how much work goes into testing, planning, prepping, and testing again before they take off.
