Status 2012/12/03:

When to go:

There is little consensus among the boats interested about when should the group leave from Cape Town. Some want to go for Carnaval, some want to meet the group somewhere more North than Ilhabela, some want to enjoy South Africa more, etc. The alternative is to define possibilities for different landings and let each boat decide when to join the group. I will be posting potential landings and good anchorage areas, as the marinas are full as per next paragraph. I expect to get going between the first two weeks of January/13. Boats that want to spend Carnaval there need to leave till the 4^th of January.

Marinas:

There is only one marina in São Paulo that has made available berths and travel lift for cruisers that want to leave the boat in BR and travel elsewhere. All the marinas along the cost are completely full, as the boat manufacturing is bursting in BR for the last 5 years, delivering over 650.000 boats per year. We will need to look for best anchorages options along the cost.

The marina available in São Paulo is Pier 26 and their contact information follows bellow. I suggest you make contact with that marina to make reservations for berthing or travel lift/services. Don’t forget to mention that you are from BRally so they will give you the discounts negotiated with them.

We negotiated prices for Brally 2013-2914 boats as follows:

Prices for a 42foot boat:

Month in the water: R$ 2.194,50

Day in the water:  R$ 89,04

Day on the dry: R$ 95,00

Lift up:  R$ 420,00

Lift down:  R$ 420,00

Boats that stay for 6 months will have one lift (in/out) free.

Documentation:

We are still working hard to get the most comfortable entry/exit documentation as possible, and have managed to negotiate an easier process where we will do documentation at the marina where we will enter the country, and they will help with the documentation process.  That is a great positive for the boats going together, but, Brazil is a very large country and I am sure things can be more difficult in areas beyond our control. Nevertheless, we have people on land that will be helping on the documentation process, as needed and as possible.

Anchorages:

I will be posting recommended anchorages along the way shortly.

Route CapeTown 2 Sta Helena 2 Trindade 2 Ilhabela

NOTE: The NEW landfall is now proposed for Bracuhy, Ilha Grande Bay, Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro. You can use the same proposed route, but stop at the new landfall WP as proposed on the NEW Landfall posting.

The direct route from Cape Town to Ilhabela is only a couple of days shorter then the one via Sta. Helena, because of the winds and currents, so I used Visual Passage Planner to propose an optimnized route, maximizing wind and minimizing passage time and got the following results.

The first leg, from Cape Town to Sta. Helena has 1657 miles and can be sailed in 10 days, following this route, at average speed of 6.5 knots. We can stay some 5 days in Sta Helena for resting and provisioning, then head to Martim Vaz and Trindade, two Brazilian islands for some rest and maybe some diving and fishing. Not great anchorages, but we are also not expecting any big wind at this time of the year.

You can learn more about the Sta. Helena island on: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Helena

The leg to Martim Vaz and Trindade has 1.385 miles and can be sailed in 10 days at 6 knots. You can learn more about these islands on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trindade_and_Martim_Vaz

And finally, the last leg to Ilhabela has 911 miles, that sailed at 6.1 knots will put us there in 7 days.

The total crossing will take (10+5+10+2+7=34) 34 days if we stop 5 days in Sta Helena, 1 day in Martim Vaz, and 1 in Trindade, so we need to plan to be leaving Cape Town between the 2nd and 4th of January, to make it on time for first day of Carnaval. 

You can learn about Ilhabela on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilhabela,S%C3%A3o_Paulo

Where and When to go:

The basic guideline for sailing the Brazilian coast is to go South during summer and North during winter, but one can sail practically anywhere at anytime. See posting on Winds and Currents.

Keeping in mind the South in the Summer, and making the best of Brazil during our stay there, BRally is suggesting an early January departure from Cape Town in South Africa, making a brief stopover in Santa Helena to break the crossing, and proceeding to a point still being defined, between Ilhabela in São Paulo and Angra dos Reis in Rio de Janeiro, for our port of entry, where we will try to facilitate the entry procedure for the BRally participants. Our goal is to arrive at our entry port with enough time for us to spend some days of Carnaval on a safe and contained place, yet to be defined.

We will have March, April and May to enjoy the nice anchorages between Ilhabela in São Paulo and Angra dos Reis in Rio de Janeiro, including Ubatuba, Parati and Ilha Grande,  before we start our way up North.

Keeping in mind that we will need to extend our visas after 90 days, and exit/re-entry Brazil before  180 days, a great option would be a visit to Iguaçu Falls for the re-entry procedure.  The idea is to leave the boat  at a good marina closer to airports and bus routes, and go to Iguaçu Falls in Mid June. That will allow for a re-entry and another period of 90+90 which would give us enough time for the trip North.

On the trip North, we suggest stopping over the following cities, where we will try to organize receptions at the local Yacht Clubs: Rio de Janeiro, Buzios, Vitoria, Abrolhos, Ilheus, Camamu, Maceio, Recife, Fernando de Noronha, Natal, Fortaleza.  It is very possible that we will have some Brazilian cruisers joining us on our trip to the North as that is the time the Iate Clube Cabanga in Recife run the famous REFENO regatta between Recife and the island of Fernando de Noronha.

After Fortaleza, we will try to organize a trip through the Amazon river, but that is still a dream that will depend on our time to put that together.

After that, each boat will continue to their own destination.