World ARC Sails Off

by World Cruising Club on 25 Jan 2008 41 yachts including 6 multihulls gathered this week on the 'start line' for the World ARC, the new circumnavigation rally organised and managed by the UK-based cruising rally organisers from the World Cruising Club (WCC), best known for their annual Atlantic Rally for Cruisers . The fleet set off from Rodney Bay, St.Lucia Wednesday with a group of enthusiastic sailors beginning a 15-month cruising adventure of a lifetime.

The flags of 13 nations are represented in the rally, with the UK and Germany fielding the most participants at 15 and 5 yachts respectively. The largest yacht in the rally is an Oyster 82 - Tillymint, with the smallest a Lagoon 380 - Lady Kay.

The route and timing have been selected so as to benefit from seasonal weather conditions by planning to be 'in the right place at the right time'. Both the Pacific and the Indian Oceans will be crossed during the optimum period, at the height of the favourable trade wind season. Cruising 'guru' Jimmy Cornell has helped to plan the route, which calls at some of the most attractive sailing destinations in the world.

World ARC takes in a mixture of open ocean stages, independent cruising and planned meetings along the route. After crossing the Pacific, the Rally avoids the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa owing to political unrest and a heightened security situation in the region and instead rounds the Cape of Good Hope to call at Brazil before returning to the Caribbean.

Throughout World ARC, a multi-lingual WCC rally team will be in each port to look after the participants ashore, whilst a safety and communications net will operate on each ocean stage. Weather and routing advice is being provided, and the World ARC website will track yacht positions and display news, yacht logs and images to enable everyone to share in this great adventure.

To follow the progress of the new World ARC, go to the website

What you'll see there:

There'll be much to see there, as once the yachts depart, daily yacht position reports will be displayed, giving distance to the finish, daily distance in nautical miles and an individual route map for each yacht. Launching the interactive Google Earth window will enable you to plot the entire fleet, or just a few yachts, on Google's globe, overlaid with wind and cloud data.

Crews will also share their experiences by contributing yacht logs and images directly to the website. As many as half of the crews are expected to join in with daily logs, which have been the most avidly read and widely enjoyed section of the website in other rallies.