The Bermuda Triangle is no more dangerous than other heavily travelled stretches of sea. There is no evidence that ships or aircraft disappear there more often, and the myth comes from books and magazines. For sailors, what counts there are very real things, above all the Gulf Stream, the hurricane season and dense shipping traffic.<\/p>\n
As a stretch of sea, yes; as a special danger zone, no. The US authorities do not recognise it as an area where more happens than elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Numerous losses of ships and aircraft in the region have been investigated. The result: there were always physical causes, and no extraordinary factors were ever found. There is also no evidence<\/a>that mysterious disappearances occur there more often than in other heavily travelled sea areas. The US Navy and Coast Guard cite forces of nature and human error as the causes of accidents.<\/p>\n Speculation about sunken cities, dimensional portals or extraterrestrials does not stand up to scrutiny. Even gas eruptions from the seabed are only a conjecture as an explanation.<\/p>\n The Bermuda Triangle lies in the western North Atlantic, off the south-east coast of the USA. Its corners are generally taken to be Miami in Florida, the Bermuda islands in the north and San Juan in Puerto Rico in the south.<\/p>\n There is no official map with fixed boundaries, and the term is not recognised in the USA as an official geographical name. For that reason there is no official figure for its area either, and every depiction draws the lines slightly differently.<\/p>\n The area includes the Bahamas with their shallow banks, the Straits of Florida and the open sea between the Antilles and Bermuda. The Gulf Stream runs through the western part.<\/p>\n The myth arose from a handful of unexplained losses that were later woven into a mystery in books and magazines. The name itself is more recent than the best-known cases.<\/p>\n The US Navy cargo ship left Barbados for Baltimore on 4 March 1918, laden with manganese ore and with 306 people on board. She never arrived, sent no distress call and was never found. A German attack could not be proven after the war. Today the most likely cause is thought to be a sudden failure of the ship's structure. It is the largest loss of life in the US Navy outside combat.<\/p>\n On 5 December 1945, five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers with 14 men took off from Fort Lauderdale on a navigation training flight over the Bahamas. The flight leader reported that both compasses in his aircraft had failed, and the group lost its bearings. In the afternoon the wind was blowing at around 22 knots and the sea was very rough. The aircraft probably had to ditch after running out of fuel.<\/p>\n A PBM Mariner flying boat that had set off with 13 men to search for them vanished from radar in the evening, and a tanker saw an explosion. This type of aircraft was considered prone to petrol fumes. The exact cause was never established.<\/p>\n The term \u201cBermuda Triangle\u201d only emerged after the Second World War. It became widely known through a magazine article by the US author Vincent Gaddis in 1964. In 1974 the book \u201cThe Bermuda Triangle\u201d by Charles Berlitz appeared and became a bestseller. In it he linked the losses to the sunken Atlantis.<\/p>\n Three things make the area demanding: the Gulf Stream, tropical cyclones and heavy traffic. Added to these are reefs and shallow banks.<\/p>\n The Gulf Stream flows north along the coast of Florida and turns east off North Carolina. On average it runs at around 6.4 km\/h, or about 3.5 knots, at the surface, and at its peak at about 9 km\/h, or just under 5 knots.<\/p>\n If the wind blows against this current, that is from the north to north-east, the sea in the Gulf Stream becomes much higher than the wind strength alone would suggest. If a 20-knot north-easterly lasts for 18 hours, the waves in the Gulf Stream off Florida can build to around 3.7 metres, and to around 2.7 metres at 15 knots. The current can also trigger rapid and violent weather changes. If you are crossing the Gulf Stream, you should therefore wait for a weather window without northerly winds.<\/p>\n The Atlantic hurricane season<\/a> runs from 1 June to 30 November (as of November 2026). Most storms occur between mid-August and mid-October, and the statistical peak falls around 10 September. On average, a season brings 14 named storms, of which 7 are hurricanes and 3 are major hurricanes. Occasionally, storms also form before or after the season.<\/p>\n Before reliable forecasts existed, these storms cost many ships. Today there are official warnings and track forecasts, which you should check regularly while under way.<\/p>\n The area is one of the busiest stretches of sea in the world. Cruise ships, freighters and aircraft pass through it every day. At night in particular, you need an attentive lookout. AIS, the Automatic Identification System, helps you spot large ships early.<\/p>\n Extensive reefs surround Bermuda, and they account for most of the archipelago's more than 300 wrecks. The Bahamas and the other islands have many shallow areas that are tricky to navigate. Here, as everywhere, the magnetic compass does not point exactly to geographic north. The magnetic variation in the area is around 7 to 14 degrees west (as of 2026) and is shown on the chart. There is no mystery in that.<\/p>\n Bermuda lies at the north-east corner of the area and is the classic stopover on the way from the Caribbean or the US east coast to Europe. Passing right through the middle of the triangle is, above all, the crossing of the Gulf Stream between Florida and the Bahamas.<\/p>\n Many yachts set off for Europe in May each year, that is, before the hurricane season. Typical passages: from Sint Maarten to Bermuda around 870 nautical miles (nm), from Chesapeake Bay to Bermuda around 720 nm, and from Bermuda to Faial in the Azores around 1,800 nm. From there you continue to Portugal. The figures are rounded distances through the water on the usual course; for precise planning, the chart is what counts.<\/p>\n Where yachts moor and clear in at Bermuda is covered in our article on the harbours in Bermuda<\/a>. East of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands mark the start of the Lesser Antilles<\/a>.<\/p>\n No more than other offshore areas. What is real is the Gulf Stream with its high seas in a northerly wind, hurricanes from June to November, and dense traffic.<\/p>\n In the western North Atlantic between Miami, Bermuda and San Juan in Puerto Rico. There are no fixed, official boundaries.<\/p>\n There is no reliable figure, because the area has no fixed boundaries. What matters is this: given the heavy traffic, no more ships disappear there than anywhere else.<\/p>\n In 1945, after a compass failure in the flight leader's aircraft, the five planes lost their bearings and probably had to ditch in rough seas after running out of fuel. The exact cause remained unexplained.<\/p>\n Outside the hurricane season (1 June\u201330 November). For the Gulf Stream crossing, a weather window without a northerly wind also matters.<\/p>\n On T\u00f6rnfinder you will find sailing trips to the Sailing in the Caribbean<\/a> and delivery trips on which you can sign up for an Atlantic crossing cabin charter<\/a> you can, often with Bermuda and the Azores on the route.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Bermuda Triangle is no more dangerous than other busy stretches of sea. Where it is, where the myth comes from and what really matters for sailors there: the Gulf Stream, hurricane season, traffic and the route via Bermuda to the Azores.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":1733625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_tf_mag_toernhinweis":"karibik","footnotes":""},"categories":[536],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1733639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviere-haefen","category-536","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1733639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1733640,"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733639\/revisions\/1733640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1733625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1733639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1733639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toernfinder.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1733639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Where is the Bermuda Triangle?<\/h2>\n
Where does the myth of the Bermuda Triangle come from?<\/h2>\n
USS Cyclops (1918)<\/h3>\n
Flight 19 (1945)<\/h3>\n
How the name came about<\/h3>\n
What really matters to sailors in the Bermuda Triangle?<\/h2>\n
Gulf Stream: wind against current<\/h3>\n
Hurricane season<\/h3>\n
Traffic, reefs and compass<\/h3>\n
Which sailing routes touch the Bermuda Triangle?<\/h2>\n
Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n
Is the Bermuda Triangle dangerous for sailors?<\/h3>\n
Where exactly is the Bermuda Triangle?<\/h3>\n
How many ships have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle?<\/h3>\n
What happened to Flight 19?<\/h3>\n
When is the best time to sail in the Bermuda Triangle area?<\/h3>\n
Cabin Charter Yourself<\/h2>\n