HELEN FRETTER ON FINAL ARC PREPARATIONS
Every autumn the pontoons of Las Palmas are a hive of activity, as hundreds of yachts prepare to cross the Atlantic with the ARC and ARC+ rallies.
Over its 38-year history, the ARC has seen thousands of sailors pass through Las Palmas, and an entire network has grown up around the port and city to support the World Cruising Club community, as well as dozens of suppliers and services who set up base in Gran Canaria for a few weeks to help prepare the fleet.
But if you’re planning to cross from the famous transatlantic jump-off point, what are the key things to get checked off your jobs list before you arrive in Gran Canaria, and what is best done in Las Palmas? Shortly before this year’s ARC rally we spoke to skippers, organisers and yacht services to get their top tips.
ARRIVE EARLY
“The most important piece of advice is get here early,” cautions World Cruising Club’s Jeremy Wyatt. “And by early, I mean ideally September. Certainly no later than early October, because you’ll have more time to do things, the yards are less busy, the chandlers have got time for you. If you leave everything until the first or second week in November, it’s going to be very stressful.
“We definitely advise yachts to get here by early October, and there’s also a good weather reason for that as well. If you look at the synoptics at the moment [early November] there are some big low pressure systems in Biscay, so you should be across Biscay by early September. You should be hopefully out of the Iberian Peninsula, or out of the Med, to be in the Canaries by early October, and then you’ll miss the worst of the weather that could delay your arrival.”
Even if you’re not crossing with the ARC rally but plan to transat independently, it’s important to schedule your arrival so you’re not competing with the rally fleet for service availability as turnaround times for between the ARC+ and ARC fleets are tight.
This year a number of yachts told us they had altered their route to sail directly to the Canary Islands rather than follow the traditional path south along the Iberian peninsula in order to avoid any risk of encountering orcas.
“We were planning on going to Portugal to have some work done, but instead we dodged the orcas, and came here early to get all the work done here,” explains Dan Bower, skipper of Skyelark 2, a charter Oyster 62.
