The ARC Countdown...

by Nancy Knudsen on 25 Nov 2006 DAY 147, 24th November, 2006:
It’s another white sky today. I will always remember Las Palmas for its white skies. In the shadowless light of the morning, the dock is humming. There’s a gangly man dangling above from his mast, calling out instructions. From the opposite boat drift wild curry cooking smells. Cartons of beer are being handed onto into an aft cockpit, and here on Blackwattle, I am feverishly sanding our gunwale ready for varnishing to protect it from the ravishes of the Atlantic Ocean.

As I work among the human conversation buzz there’s the sound of a dog barking somewhere, an ‘ARC dog’ I guess you’d call it, and from above the gentle confused flapping of the hundreds of flags flying – most boats are ‘dressed’ in a glorious cacophony of colourful fabric. Now I notice a body writhing in the water under a nearby Beneteau – but it’s okay, he’s just cleaning the hull. In our own fashion, we are all preparing.

It’s a familiar scene in some ways, but lacks the laid back feeling of a normal marina – there’s a vibrancy in the air here – people walk with purpose, attend their duties. We have just hours to go before all of us – all 232 boats and 1100 people - set off for one of the most famous cruising passages of all, the Atlantic Crossing.

Ted and I, on Blackwattle, joined the Arc (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) a little sceptical. After sailing half way round the world, we felt we didn’t need to join such a large group – why not do what thousands of cruisers do – swap information and stories as you go, with the bonhomie that accompanies cruising sailors no matter where they find themselves?

But the last two weeks have been a revelation. Here in the Canaries is the stepping off point, not only for sailors who have bought a boat without any prior experience to sail away literally into the sunset, but also for hundreds of highly competent racing sailors from all parts of Europe. The Atlantic holds an allure, a reputation, a challenge for sailors from the Baltic to the Eastern Mediterranean that is hard to resist.

'I have wanted to cross the Atlantic ever since I started sailing as a kid' one English sailor tells me. And it’s a commonly shared view.

The World Cruising Club fosters this ambition in a way that is both exciting, celebratory, and admirably down-to-earth.

One of the best known ‘ARCers’ is ‘Tedski’ Allen, 72, from the Midlands of UK, who is doing his seventh ARC, this time on Brigand. ‘Why am I doing it?’ he laughs, ‘because I’m crazy I guess! No,’ and he waves his arm expansively around at the festooned yachts, ‘I just LOVE this atmosphere.’

‘I reckon,’ says vivacious Australian Caylie from Steamy Windows, ‘They are keeping us so busy to take our minds off worrying about what we are about to DO!’

For the last two weeks there have been non-stop parties – happy hours and cocktails, dinners and suppers, a fancy dress wild night - sponsored by local and international organisations. But after you have recovered from your early morning hangover, there is an amazing array of just the right educational seminars to set you up properly for your international crossing.

There are seminars and info sharing sessions on the weather, rigging, first aid at sea, tips for downwind sailing, provisioning, power management, communications, emergency management, practical sextant tips, double-handed sailing. You name it, there’s a seminar to cover it – and it’s so imminently relevant that these sessions are ideal also as refreshers even for the best sailor - covered just at the moment when your mind is most perfectly concentrated on the coming journey.

And they do it with a smile. Running the event – and what an event – are a gaggle of yellow T-shirted World Cruising Club staff, who manage to organise without ever seeming to herd, for whom nothing is ever too much trouble. I guess, after 21 years of organisational experience, current owners Andrew Bishop and Jeremy Wyatt ought to know what they are doing, and the formula works. – Next year’s crop of hopeful Atlantic Crossers will be generated by the amazing goodwill that the ‘yellow people’ have managed to create this year.

Finally, I think, the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers is a bit like the United Nations – if it didn’t exist, you’d just have to invent it.

As for Blackwattle and its crew – we’ve repaired the alternator, installed new sheets, hosed, cleaned, varnished and put on enough food to reach Galapagos. We’ve route-planned 15 different scenarios, but we reckon the trip will take about 19 days. We’ve studied the weather until I’m dreaming about isobars, and had so many happy hours that I can’t wait to get to sea. Nothing for it now, but to depart – I wonder what the ocean will have in store for us this time….
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The following pictures will hopefully show the a little of the spirit of the ARC - the fun and the seriousness - combining to make probably one of the most memorable experiences in most participants’ lives:

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