Beating the Strait of Gibraltar

We had a great sail through the Strait of Gibraltar. We left Sancti-Petri at 10 o’clock on Thursday 11 July having chosen our timings to try to make the most of the tidal flow through the Start of Gibratlar. Consequently, we felt our way out through the channel carefully on the ebb; going aground at Sancti-Petri on a falling tide at the start of our passage would not have been good!

Cabo Trafalgar

The wind was forecast to be westerly Force 2-4 (4-16 knots) down to a bit east of Cabo Trafalgar and then easterly Force 2-3 (4-10 knots) in the Strait of Gibraltar. Once we got out of  Sancti-Petri, however, the reality was just 7 knots so we motorsailed down to Cabo Trafalgar expecting to have to do the same for the whole passage.




Passing Cabo Trafalgar was memorable and evocative as we both tried to imagine the lines of square-riggers and the carnage of battle that had changed the world here.

The Spanish like their windfarms – and there’s normally plenty of wind here!

We could see around 6 yachts all motoring along pretty much the same route as us, turning east towards Gibraltar. South of Trafalgar though we started to get a southeasterly wind that was strong enough to sail with. We tacked backwards and forwards having a great time as the larger yachts motored slowly past us. The yachts that were more our size bucked up and down in the short seas, trying to punch into the waves. Under sail we were much faster but had to cover twice the distance so we stayed in sight of about 4 yachts as we tracked east towards the narrowest point of the Strait at Tarifa.

The fortified Isla de Tarifa and the town behind

The lighthouse at Tarifa

As we got closer to Tarifa the wind progressively backed, following the line of the high coastline, and increased as it was accelerated through the funnel-like gap of the Strait. We progressively reduced sail and kept blasting along at 6-7 knots, hard on the wind. Apparently Tarifa experiences more than 30 knots of wind for about 300 days of the year so we felt that we had got off lightly with just a steady 20 knots across the deck there. We also found that our timing had worked out extremely well with the tide as we had 9-10 knots over the ground and the extra push greatly helped our tacking angles.

As an aside, there is almost always an easterly current flowing into through the Strait; water from the Atlantic replacing evaporative losses from the Mediterranean. The only exception to this might be when the Levanter has been blowing strongly for an extended period. No matter what the tide is doing, the current still streams east in the centre of the Strait (in the middle of the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS)). Towards the edges of the Strait the tide runs east for 6 hours and west for 6 hours but the timing changes quite markedly depending on how far from the land you are so it is possible, if you move progressively away from the coast, to experience an east-going tide for 9 hours in 12.

There were a few wrecks and some shallows to tack around to the west of Tarifa and then we found ourselves watching out for the high speed ferries crossing from Tarifa to Morocco. All the time we had to make sure that we stayed in the northern part of the Strait to make sure that we did not conflict with the shipping in the TSS.

We have been keeping a bottle of champagne that we had been given when we bought BV to drink when we got into the Mediterranean. Not wishing to tempt fate it was kept in the ‘wine cellar’ under the floorboards until we were past the lighthouse at Tarifa and then it went straight into the fridge to chill down. We’d made it into the Med! It was a great feeling after all of the preparation work and planning.

The Pillars of Hercules – The Rock of Gibraltar on the left and Jebel Musa in Morocco, on the right

We sailed on, still tacking whilst the yachts around us motored but we found ourselves losing ground against them as the wind eased. We weren't fussed though. Gliding along under full sail we enjoyed sundowners and the amazing view of the Pillars of Hercules. A fantastic evening under sail.

Sunset over Algeciras

The wind finally died on us as we reached the entrance to the Bay of Gibraltar. With the sun setting over Algeciras we picked our way through the tankers and other ships. We were both surprised at just how busy the bay was and our AIS was a real help as the visibility started to reduce markedly. We adjusted our speed, sometimes holding position to let a ship or high speed ferry pass and the darted across to the Gibraltar side of the bay. A Dutch yacht, one which had been motoring and slowly catching us up since the Strait, clearly decided we knew what we were doing as she suddenly stuck behind us in close formation. They didn’t have AIS and it must have seemed strange to them when we stopped until suddenly a large tanker appeared out of the mist.

Our track sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar

At 10 o’clock at night we finally dropped anchor just north of the marina at La Linea on the Spanish side of the border with Gibraltar. We had finally made it into the Mediterranean and from our anchorage had an amazing view of the floodlit Rock of Gibraltar. I took the photograph below and then 20 minutes later the fog rolled in and we couldn’t even see the yachts moored 40m away from us. Good timing we thought!

The Rock of Gibraltar