Ocean Currents/Alternate Colonies

I'm checking a map of Ocean currents thinking about alternate colonial points of departure.

- How bad was crossing the Romanche Trench from Cape Verde? Could Brazil be contested easily or were the Dutch and the French just rather lucky and obsessive? Most of the currents in the area between Brazil and West Africa seem to be slow ones?
- How hard would reaching the Azores from France or Britain be? How hard was it from Portugal; it seems to be counter-current from Europe.
- Cabot, Verrazano and Cartier did their trips across the north Atlantic more or less directly; would going through the (OTL Spanish dominated) Antilles current have been faster?
- France and Britain seem to have been sailing against the gulf stream to reach their north American colonies, how much of an issue was it? I see reported travel times going down to as low as three or four weeks by the 18th century, compared to two months early on, I figure shipbuilding advances helped in that regard?
- Would an early modern fleet seriously have been in a position to entirely block naval access to a colony on the Rio de la Plata from Brazil?
 
- France and Britain seem to have been sailing against the gulf stream to reach their north American colonies, how much of an issue was it? I see reported travel times going down to as low as three or four weeks by the 18th century, compared to two months early on, I figure shipbuilding advances helped in that regard?

One possibility for the speed up was also navigation techniques.

For example, you can save two weeks time by crossing the gulf stream (perpendicular to it) instead of trying to fight against it. This was apparently not known to mail ships coming from England, who took two months to cross, prompting Benjamin Franklin, Colonial Postmaster! to investigate. He found out about it by talking to his cousin, a Nantucket whaling captain and merchant, and started publishing papers trying to convince other ships to start using the technique. Of course, no one listened to him.

http://www.studyofplace.info/Activi...eanCurrents_Reading_BenFranklinGulfStream.pdf
 
One possibility for the speed up was also navigation techniques.

For example, you can save two weeks time by crossing the gulf stream (perpendicular to it) instead of trying to fight against it. This was apparently not known to mail ships coming from England, who took two months to cross, prompting Benjamin Franklin, Colonial Postmaster! to investigate. He found out about it by talking to his cousin, a Nantucket whaling captain and merchant, and started publishing papers trying to convince other ships to start using the technique. Of course, no one listened to him.

http://www.studyofplace.info/Activi...eanCurrents_Reading_BenFranklinGulfStream.pdf

That's interesting.
Is there something or someone that Franklin did not do?
 
So what I get is - there's a current to cross before anyone leaving France, Britain or the north sea hits the Atlantic gyre south, which probably causes issues early on with Spanish naval supremacy (but admittedly didn't stop people from claiming thing here and there, although serious contestation of the spanish presence in the Caribbean only started in earnest after the 30yw as spanish naval supremacy started to decline seriously).

Brazil is basically sort of a fluke but controlling Cape Verde and Fernando Po helps for this, Madeira and the Canaries are right on the gyre, while the Azores are in no particular current and could probably have been taken by anyone but aren't particularly useful for more expeditions (okay that's understating their importance).

France, the Netherlands and Britain seem to have done fine taking over the bits the spanish lost control over during the late 17th century...

Assuming a more multipolar situation could have lasted (it lasted quite late, British naval supremacy is only something that can be dated absolutely to the mid 18th century with the main contenders still being realistically in the race - IMO they were still in until the revolutionary wars) I guess it would have made Swedish, French and Dutch positions on the continent more viable. That and maybe not having the Swedish and dutch colonies surrounded by English ones.

France has the handicap that China or an imperial wank would have, which is that as a hegemonic continental empire it's not that likely to be interested in settling colonies.
 
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The Portuguese stumbled on Brazil because ironically it is easier to sail around Africa the further west you go.

Also, the Spanish noted the Kuro-Siwo current fairly early. If they had given more importance to the trade with China and/or if Japan had remained open longer there is chance that the Spanish could have settled California earlier and eventually gotten to Hawaii.
 
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