Tom, Jayne and friends go all the way…
The World Cruising Club’s World ARC rally 2024 (WARC’24) sets off from Saint Lucia in the Caribbean in January 2024 and takes 15 months to circumnavigate the globe the civilised way i.e. sailing west, mostly downwind (we hope), returning to finish back in Saint Lucia in April 2025.
As our boat is currently in Mallorca in the Mediterranean, we need to cross the Atlantic to get to the WARC start line. To do that we’re joining the World Cruising Club’s most famous and original rally, the ARC; the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. ARC’23 leaves Las Palmas, Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands in November 2023 and arrives in Saint Lucia before Christmas, in time for the WARC start.
So we just need to get to the Canaries by the end of October 2023 to join the ARC’23. The Canaries are about eight hundred miles from Gibraltar which means our voyage starts in Sep/Oct 2023 as we sail out of the Med fully prepped and ready for everything!
Our voyage starts as we past Gibraltar and leave the Mediterranean. First stop is Gran Canaria (800 miles) where we join the ARC’23 to Saint Lucia (3000 miles). After that we join the WARC’24 and go all the way round (30,000 miles). With thanks to NASA for the image.
OCEAN 1: THE ATLANTIC
The eight hundred miles or so from Gibraltar to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria will be a great way to check that Dilema and her crew are ready for the voyages ahead. We’ll have had a full year to prep both boat and ourselves, hopefully logging well over a thousand miles in the Med during our first year of ownership to see-off any gremlins. We will then have a few weeks in Las Palmas for last minute adjustments and repairs before our first full ocean crossing. We’re looking forward to those weeks and, as well as attending the WCC briefings, we hope to make many new and long-lasting friendships among the other crews joining the ARC. The ARC’21 saw 143 boats cross the start line in Las Palmas and it is growing in popularity.
Once we’re on the way though, we don’t expect to see the other boats until we get close to Saint Lucia around three weeks later. We’ll all be sailing at different speeds and following our own routes as we make our individual judgements on what’s best for our own crew and boat given the expected conditions. Even 150 boats will quickly separate in the vastness of the Atlantic.
Our hope is that the conditions will be mostly favourable. They say to cross The Atlantic from Europe one should sail South until the butter melts then turn right to follow the setting sun. Well, you never know, we might get lucky.
OCEAN 2: THE PACIFIC
With The Atlantic behind us (for now) and batteries recharged over Christmas in the Caribbean we will have at last made it to the start the World-ARC. If leaving the Med to face The Atlantic felt daunting, I guess leaving the Caribbean to face the Pacific will only feel more so. Better that than feeling overconfident or complacent.
The World-ARC starts with a gentle 1000 miles or so to Panama, stopping on the way to visit some of the beautiful islands in the San Blas Archipelago. Not for long though as we’re on a schedule. Through the Panama Canal and out into the Pacific where our first stop, The Galápagos Islands, will be roughly another 1000 miles away.
After we have what might be the longest leg of the whole trip, roughly 3,000 miles to the Marquesas Islands. No turning back now. If we feel up to it by then we’ll set ourselves the challenge of finding these tiny islands in the middle of this vast ocean navigating only by the stars (although I’m guessing it’ll be impossible not to have the occasional peek at the GPS just to make sure). From the Marquesas it’s a twisty-turn route island-hopping through magical-sounding places all the way to Australia; Tahiti, Bora Bora, Suwarrow, Niue, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu. I’m not sure exactly which ones we’ll visit on WARC’24 but we’re certainly spoiled for choice.
Suwarrow, Cook Islands. With thanks for the image to the Cook Islands Voyaging Society
This leg finishes in Mackay, Queensland, Australia. We’ll have covered 10,000 miles from Saint Lucia as the crow flies, more given the twists and turns of our actual route. It’ll be August 2024, not quite a year since we set off from Europe. If we’re still going, we’ll might by now feel able to call ourselves accomplished sailors.
OCEAN 3: THE INDIAN OCEAN
The final part of our trip is the longest. We have around a month in Australia, during which time we make our way up the Queensland coast and around to Darwin ready to sail our third ocean in September. After at least one stop in Indonesia (perhaps Lombok) we head out into the Indian Ocean. It’s 1,300 miles or so from there to Cocos (Keeling Islands) and then Mauritius and Reunion are the best part of 3,000 miles further on by which time we’re pretty-well across the Indian Ocean and just 1,300 miles from South Africa where we arrive sometime in Late October or early November. South Africa will be the southern-most point of our voyage and we’ll watch the weather closely hoping for good conditions as we approach Cape Town. At 34 degrees South it’s not yet the roaring forties, but it’s close enough. After that we’re back in the Atlantic and, after a brief stop on the Namibian coast, heading for Brazil via St. Helena and then back up to the Caribbean to finish the WARK at Saint Lucia.
Mauritius Photo by Xavier Coiffic on Unsplash
WHAT NEXT ?
What next will depend how we feel. Maybe we’ll have had enough messing about in boats by then, or maybe we’ll be hooked and not want to stop. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
