The Route
There is a window of time for a small boat to
cross the North Atlantic safely. It is after the spring gales
- the April showers that bring May flowers - and the start of
hurricane season. Starting off before the middle of May increases
the likelihood of strong winds in the Atlantic. Departing the
East Coast of North America after mid-July increases the chance
of tropical storms spinning north from the Caribbean catching
up to vessels in the northwest atlantic. Crossing in late June/early
July is the safest time - though for a sailboat, it is also the
time of year with the lightest oceanic winds, so one can expect
that some of the trip will be delayed with calm, windless days.
There are three possible ways to
get from mid-coast States to NW coast of Ireland. The shortest
route, and the route taken by most ships (which I would like to
avoid) is to hug the coast of America -go past Nantucket, Maine,
Nova Scotia, then Newfoundland at then across only (!)1800 miles
of open ocean to Ireland. Beside the ships with which I would
rather not collide, there is fog off Maine and Newfoundland, many
fishing vessels, and icebergs that flow down on the Labrador Current,
some summers to the latitude of Boston. The southern route would
have a sailboat going from east coast to Bermuda (650 miles) thence
to the Azores (1500 miles), then NE to Ireland (1200 miles). Disadvantages
of this route are: length, and calms - broad areas of no wind
caused by the summer resident Azorean High pressure system.
The median way, and the way I plan
to go is this: travel east along the 40 parallel of N. Latitude
to the 50 degrees W longitude, then make a NE course to Ireland.
This will keep me away from ship traffic, away from fogs on the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and south of any summer icebergs.
I will need to cross the shipping lanes when getting away from
Jersey shore, and again when crossing the Western approaches to
Great Britain, Belgium, France - but for most of the passage,
a sailor would be well away from commercial shipping lanes. 
This
route will be a bit longer than the northern route, but much safer,
and a bit shorter than the southern route, but with fewer windless
days.
I hope to make landfall at Skellig
Michael - a seven-hundred foot rock, 6 miles off the coast. The
rocky islet had served as a monastery for almost one-thousand
years
