Hi Bill,
Thanks for your reply. I will follow you next summer, as well as this thread. If you happen to maintain a blog/website/FB page, etc ., I'd be happy to update my list of favorite links.
Keep in touch, Michel / michel@velvet2.fr, www.velvet2.fr

The Northern Route to America from Northern Europe
s/v Alchemy, Ginger and Dick Stevenson
The following is a short description of our Northern Route across the Atlantic from Europe to Canada: Scotland to the Faroes to Iceland to Greenland to Newfoundland (2017). It includes some description of preparations specific to this route and a thumb nail sketch of the trip itself.
Our Ship’s Logs (periodic letters to friends and family) and Alchemy Harbor Notes for these passages/cruises will go a long way to flesh out the below details: please contact if wished.
We are a 40-foot fiberglass sailing vessel whose speed on passage usually averages just under 6 knots and is usually sailed by just the 2 of us. Choosing the northern route--the Viking route--was not done without some serious trepidation and we spent considerable time preparing over the previous year. In the end, the Viking route just made a great deal more sense and took us to magnificent cruising grounds that were (and are) unique. The usual route across the Atlantic to Maritime Canada remains, for the vast majority of cruisers: S to African coastal islands, west to the Caribbean, and then north. The Viking route is 4 passages, the longest still less than 700nm. The Trade Winds route has far greater distances and needs far more time to accomplish. A personal consideration is that we had already spent much time in the Caribbean and in sunny/beachy locales and are at an age where the sun is not our friend.
Preparation:
We had not done a long ocean passage in a decade, so upgrades were in order. More specific to the passage, I suspected that our go-to long distance communications over the decades (SSB radio, ham and marine) might be difficult with the sun up most of the day causing propagation issues and being so far N (this proved to be the case), so we got a sat phone with data connection. It had an impressive learning curve, but eventually proved essential in Greenland communicating with the ice patrol and getting ice charts. We also used a knowledgeable shore-based computer person (family member) to “personalize” ice charts by cropping and compression so their transmit load would not be as high.
We also chose to use a professional weather router for the first time. The sat phone also made for easy comm with Commanders Weather, who proved very helpful, especially at picking windows to leave Iceland and, later, Greenland. We were glad of the additional support they gave to our own forecasting skills.
Another change from our usual SOPs was to have crew for the Greenland parts as we anticipated that the passages could be quite challenging. We were also concerned that much work might be needed in securing hold-fasts on shore and the like. These concerns proved unwarranted, as passage conditions were relatively fast and easy, and we found anchoring depths workable for free anchoring.
We expected that at least once a low traveling from Canada would pass over us, producing head winds and higher velocities, and we would heave-to for a period for the low to pass, but that did not turn out to be the case. The jet stream tracked S this season and our wind directions were reaches to wind behind the majority of the time making for comfortable, fast passages. The weather was as forecast. Our longest passage was around 5 ½ days.
Cold was not an issue: we have 2 heaters, a Refleks (drip diesel--better at anchor) and an Eberspracher (forced hot air--better at sea). We very much appreciated the redundancy of heat sources. We had a lot of lovely sun, and some rain and fog.
We also have 2 self-steering devices (wind vane and below-decks electric).
We have plastic “curtains” (think of the hung strips of plastic at the entrance to an ice/cold room, but far more attractive) hung on the aft end of our dodger which allows for the on-watch to sit protected from rain, spray and wind, leading to a huge increase in comfort. In higher latitudes these have extended our season by weeks at each end and made all higher latitude sailing far more comfortable.
We bought one exposure suit, largely with scrambles ashore from dinghy in mind to establish hold-fasts; in boisterous weather, it seemed that this work would provide ample opportunities for falling into the water (temps were 1-6C/33-40F). Experienced and knowledgeable cruisers we know would have wished us to have survivor suits. We found stowage of the 1 exposure suit a bit of a challenge on our 40-foot vessel, let alone 2-3 survival suits.
Offshore storm survival practices (and the documentation of their actual effectiveness) have come a long way in the last decade or so and we bought a Jordan Series Drogue, hoping it would be like the umbrella one carries to ward off rain. This proved to be the case.
Thumb nail sketch of each country:
The Faroes, an overnight sail from Stornoway, The Outer Hebrides, were wonderful cruising, full of history, great hiking, good people, and many islands/towns of interest. Probably the most compact amazingly picaresque area we have ever cruised. We spent a month+ wandering its islands.
We were in Iceland for a month+. Landing on the island of Vestmannyear was a wonderful introduction. We then moved on to Reyjkjavik. We were expecting multiple visitors and so did mostly land cruising (rental cars and Airbnb’s) with the guests which came our way. We were also waiting for the ice to clear on the east coast of Greenland; it was persistent. The land cruising was amazing, but we largely missed out cruising the island by water.
We arrived on the east coast of Greenland (5+ days) with Prince Christian Sound closed because of ice and, therefore got “stuck” in a protected fjord for almost a week while waiting for PCS to open. Our biggest worry was that it would not open and we would need to go around the tip of Greenland. In actuality, it was a great week of being in a magnificent fjord with lots of ice and nice walks on a magnificent coastline where few boats spend any time. However, this meant we had to give the more populated SW coast of Greenland only 10 days or so, far too little time to appreciate the towns and people to the extent they deserve.
Leaving Greenland was impressively harrowing as fog set in and then nightfall obscured the many icebergs about. This was the only time I was concerned to have a fiberglass boat. Many might have hove-to in the ice because of the poor visibility, but between the fog and night, we wondered whether we would ever get going again. Arrival in Newfoundland (again 5+ days) was a celebratory event and we have greatly enjoyed the months we have spent cruising the Canadian Maritimes over 2 seasons.

Dick,
Thanks for sharing that - interesting indeed. What was the timing of your trip? When did you leave Stornaway and when did you arrive in Newfoundland? Did you overwinter somewhere up there?
Bill

Bill Balme

Hi Bill,
Good questions and I should have included dates as they are important in that part of the world. I will add to the original and re-post. In the meantime:
I do not have my log books with me, but we cruised the Outer Hebrides April into early May when we left Stornoway for the Faroes. About mid-June we left for Iceland. We were looking to leave Iceland when Prince Christian Sound opened: it didn’t but we felt we needed to leave regardless when August was approaching and we had a good weather window. It was not until Aug 6 that PCS opened and we got through and to the west side of Greenland. Finally, it is generally thought wise to be leaving Greenland for Canada by mid-August.
We arrived in Newfoundland in about the third week of Aug. where we over-wintered Alchemy in a wonderful marina in Lewisporte. One of our goals was to cruise the Canadian Maritimes and they prove to be as wonderful as reported: we are still there in 2019.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy