Voyage Summary

Departing Tubarão on the Brazilian east coast, the vessel tracked north-east along the Brazilian bulge before turning north-west after the equator, transiting the Caribbean Sea and approaching the Gulf of Mexico via the Yucatan Channel. The route-averaged significant wave height was 1.69 m, with 80.2% of waypoints at Douglas Sea State 4 or higher (≥1.25 m) and 4.9% at Sea State 5 or higher (≥2.5 m). The peak encounter, 2.69 m, occurred on the south-western tropical Atlantic on the approach to the Caribbean, roughly 700 nm east of Trinidad. The historical AIS track covered comparable seas (80.4% Sea State 4+ and 5.3% Sea State 5+), so the bulk of the 13.67% fuel saving came from speed and routing optimization rather than sea-state avoidance, with the optimized track also 92 nm shorter than the historical baseline.