Ep 103 ARC 2019 Beckons - Shakedown Gibraltar to the Canary Islands

The ARC, or Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, has been held every year now for over 30 years. As a vehicle for “safety in numbers”, 189 boats participated in the November, 2019 transatlantic crossing, and it's one of the biggest cruising rallies to be found worldwide. But getting there, whether you start in Gibraltar, the Azores, or the UK, can often be more difficult than the 2,700nm crossing itself. For us this was supposed to be a shakedown cruise, but with maintenance tasks looming and having just crossed the entire Med in a little over 3 weeks, it felt more like we were just abusing poor Talisman. So we left an abundant amount of time for inspections and upgrades, arriving in Las Palmas 3 weeks early. We also had our eye on the weather. If you wait too long, it's possible to get trapped in Gibraltar by winter storms and not even make the departure date. sailing videos; sailing, cruising, monohull, oyster, oyster yachts, sailing blog, sailing vblog, sailing vlog