ARC: What It Is and How to Enter

ARC Guide · Atlantic Rally for Cruisers

The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers — universally called the ARC — is the world's largest offshore sailing event and the most popular structured passage for cruisers making their first Atlantic crossing. World Cruising Club launched it in 1986 with a handful of boats; it now regularly attracts 200 to 250 boats ranging from 30-foot production cruisers to 60-foot custom ketches, crewed by everyone from seasoned bluewater sailors to first-time ocean passagemakers. The appeal is not hard to understand: you get the Atlantic trade wind route with a fleet of like-minded boats around you, daily position reporting, official safety requirements that force you to get the boat properly prepared, organised weather briefings, and a party in the Las Palmas marina village that lasts the better part of November.

Rally, Not Race

The ARC is emphatically a rally rather than a race, a distinction that matters to how you prepare and how you cross. IRC handicap scoring is available for those who want it — roughly a third of the fleet enters the race division — but the majority of ARC boats are in the cruising division, which means their standing depends on elapsed time for statistical purposes rather than a competitive result. In practice, most cruising-division boats spend the passage optimising for comfort, safety, and a consistent autopilot track rather than the fastest VMG to St Lucia. Some crews fly a spinnaker; others run twin headsails on poles for three weeks without touching a sail change. The race fleet tends to pack on sail; the rally fleet tends to be conservative after sundown. Both approaches arrive in Rodney Bay to the same finishing ceremony and prize-giving.

This rally-first culture is intentional and it is one of the ARC's genuine strengths. Shorthanded couples crossing on a 38-foot sloop are not in competition with professional deliveries. The point is to get there safely and enjoy the passage, and the fleet structure — knowing there are 200 other boats somewhere within a few hundred miles, all reporting positions daily — provides a psychological security that is not present on a solo passage.

Registration and Entry Fees

Registration for the ARC opens in January of the departure year and the fleet fills progressively. In recent years, most of the berths have been spoken for by May or June; latecomers to the process sometimes find limited availability or end up on a waiting list. The practical advice is to register as soon as the window opens if you have a firm departure year in mind.

Entry fees in 2024 ranged from approximately £900 for boats under 10 metres to £1,500 for boats over 16 metres, with bands in between. The fee covers the rally village facilities in Las Palmas (use of the rally dock, social events, seminars), the position-reporting system access, insurance for the finish line activities in Rodney Bay, and the prize-giving ceremony. It does not cover marina fees in Las Palmas, provisioning, fuel, or any of the actual cost of the passage. World Cruising Club's website publishes the current fee schedule; check it directly as fees adjust year to year.

Mandatory Safety Requirements

Every ARC entry must pass a safety inspection before the start. The requirements are not trivial and they are not negotiable. The inspection covers: a valid EPIRB registered to the vessel, a life raft with a current service certificate (within date), jacklines rigged and in good condition, at minimum one set of personal AIS/PLB per crew member, a fully stocked and current first aid kit, and either an SSB radio or a satellite communication device capable of receiving weather and transmitting position. The Iridium GO or Iridium satellite phone is the most common satellite option; many boats also carry an SSB for weatherfax and radio nets. Flares must be in date — inspectors check expiry stamps. The life raft service date is checked against the certificate.

The position-reporting requirement is a daily check-in via the ARC's tracking system. World Cruising Club provides a tracker application through which boats report their position daily; this feeds the public ARC tracker that families at home follow obsessively. Iridium GO is the standard method. Some boats use a Garmin inReach or similar two-way satellite messenger as a backup, though these are generally considered supplementary rather than primary for the daily position report.

ARC Plus: The Cape Verde Stopover Variant

The ARC Plus is a separate event that departs Las Palmas approximately two weeks before the main ARC fleet, stops at Mindelo in São Vicente, Cape Verde for about a week, and then continues to St Lucia, where it arrives roughly in line with the main ARC fleet. ARC Plus attracts around 60 boats and is particularly popular with first-timers who want to break the Atlantic passage into two stages and with boats that want to visit Cape Verde in any case.

The Cape Verde stopover adds approximately 800nm to the total distance (Las Palmas to Mindelo is roughly 850nm; Mindelo to St Lucia is about 2,100nm) but it also divides the mental load of an ocean passage into two shorter pieces. Mindelo itself is an excellent provisioning and social stop — it has fuel, good markets, a well-sheltered harbour in Porto Grande, and a lively sailing culture. The ARC Plus fleet gets a week ashore there with events organised by World Cruising Club before the longer leg begins. Many first-time ocean passagemakers find the structure of ARC Plus preferable precisely because the Cape Verde leg is long enough to be genuinely offshore but short enough that a mechanical problem or bad weather window can be managed without three weeks of deep ocean between you and a port.

ARC Europe: The Return Leg

World Cruising Club also organises ARC Europe, a westbound-to-eastbound return passage that departs the Caribbean in May or June and crosses to the Azores, arriving back in Europe for the northern sailing season. It attracts a smaller fleet than the main ARC — roughly 30 to 50 boats in most years — and its participants tend to be experienced ocean sailors rather than first-timers. The westward route from Azores is the trade wind route in reverse; the eastward return is a different meteorological exercise involving higher latitudes and the North Atlantic High, which requires timing and weather routing skill rather than simply following the trades.

The Las Palmas Rally Village

The ARC rally village in Las Palmas builds through November and peaks in the week before the start. World Cruising Club takes over a section of the Real Club Náutico de Gran Canaria marina and organises a programme of seminars, equipment demonstrations, social events, and daily weather briefings. The seminars cover offshore medical topics, weather routing, communications, and provisioning strategy and are worth attending even for experienced passages — the weather briefings in particular, delivered by a professional forecaster, provide an Atlantic climatology update that is directly relevant to the passage you are about to make. The social side is a large part of what people remember: 200 boats in the same marina for two weeks, all bound for the same destination, creates a community that continues across the ocean and lasts for years.

Alternatives If the ARC Is Full

If the ARC is full, overpriced for your purposes, or otherwise not what you want, the options are straightforward. The Transatlantic Rally (organised by a different company) follows a broadly similar format on a similar timeframe and accepts boats that didn't make the ARC cut. The NARC — the North Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, organised by the Caribbean Compass magazine community — is a looser, lower-cost event that departs from the Canaries or Azores on a similar November timeline with position reporting but fewer organised events. And of course, going independently is completely viable: hundreds of boats cross the Atlantic every November and December without any rally affiliation, using the same trade wind window, the same route, and weather routing services that any individual can purchase. The advantage of the ARC over independent passage is community and safety infrastructure; the advantage of going independently is cost and freedom of schedule.

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Frequently Asked Questions

When does ARC registration open and how quickly does it fill? Registration opens in January of the departure year; in recent years most berths have been spoken for by May or June. Latecomers sometimes find limited availability or end up on a waiting list. The practical advice is to register as soon as the window opens if you have a firm departure year in mind.

What safety equipment does every ARC entry require before the start? Every ARC entry must pass a safety inspection covering: a valid EPIRB registered to the vessel, a life raft with a current service certificate, jacklines rigged and in good condition, at least one personal AIS/PLB per crew member, a fully stocked first aid kit, and either an SSB radio or satellite communication device. Flares must be in date — inspectors check expiry stamps.

What is the ARC Plus and how does it differ from the main ARC? The ARC Plus departs Las Palmas approximately two weeks before the main ARC fleet, stops in Mindelo, São Vicente, Cape Verde for about a week, then continues to St Lucia arriving roughly in line with the main fleet. It attracts around 60 boats and adds approximately 800nm to the total distance, dividing the Atlantic passage into two shorter pieces for first-timers.

What are the entry fees for the ARC and what do they cover? Entry fees in 2024 ranged from approximately £900 for boats under 10 metres to £1,500 for boats over 16 metres. The fee covers rally village facilities in Las Palmas, the position-reporting system, insurance for finish line activities in Rodney Bay, and the prize-giving ceremony. It does not cover marina fees, provisioning, fuel, or passage costs.

What are the best alternatives if the ARC is full or too expensive? The Transatlantic Rally follows a similar format on a similar timeframe and accepts boats that didn't make the ARC cut. The NARC (North Atlantic Rally for Cruisers), organized by the Caribbean Compass community, is a lower-cost event departing the Canaries or Azores with position reporting but fewer organized events. Hundreds of boats also cross the Atlantic every November and December without any rally affiliation.

What communications equipment is standard for ARC boats at sea? The position-reporting requirement is a daily check-in via the ARC's tracking system application. Iridium GO is the standard method for the daily position report. Some boats also use a Garmin inReach or similar two-way satellite messenger as backup. Many ARC boats additionally carry an SSB radio for weatherfax and participation in the offshore radio nets.