20 Operation Transatlantic: ARC
According to statistics, hundreds of private ships cross the Atlantic every year. The "Atlantic Rally for Cruisers" (ARC) organized by the British sailing magazine "Cruising World" is the largest collective ocean crossing activity. Every year at the end of November, 250 ships set off from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, destined for St Lucia in the Caribbean Sea. This is also a non-competitive race, designed to make the long and boring journey across the ocean more interesting. "Fellows" participated in the ARC in 2005.
ARC is very popular with cruise ships. Registration starts in January every year, and the 250 places are usually filled up within two months. In February 2005, we signed up the "comrade" before she even got into the water. Because it was our first time to cross the ocean, we felt unsure, so we thought it would be safer to go with the organization. The organizers of the ARC divided all the ships into more than a dozen groups according to the speed of the ship. Each group has a flagship, and the flagship is equipped with satellite phones and Internet. All ships must report their progress and latitude and longitude to their flagship every day. The flagship transmits the position back to the headquarters, and the organizer then posts the information to the website. My parents have a large map of the world at home. They check the location online every day, and then insert little red flag pins into the corresponding locations on the map. They followed me in fear, but they didn't know how excited and happy I was on the way—poor parents in the world.
The registration fee for ARC is less than one thousand euros, but the benefits are absolutely worth it. Two weeks before departure, ARC conducts safety inspections on all ships, and those that fail will not be able to sail. The organizing committee also holds a variety of free lectures, including: emergency medical rescue, food procurement, fishing, shortwave communications, meteorology, flare demonstrations, helicopter rescue (a real helicopter demonstration), introduction to the Caribbean, etc. There are big parties every night, and food and drink are free. The parties have different themes such as pirates, Hawaiian, cowboy western, etc. Someone really put in the effort to create props, wear costumes, and put on heavy makeup, but we just fooled around with a little effort. The registration fees alone are obviously not enough for so many activities, and the main financial source comes from sponsors. With hundreds of ships gathering together, merchants will certainly not miss this great business opportunity. The purpose of the sponsored event is to introduce their products to boat owners, not to mention that they are actually effective. For example: There is a new spinnaker design that opens a window on the sail to form an umbrella, which provides an upward support and reduces the bumping of the ship. A spinnaker with an open window is prohibitively expensive, but after being introduced by the manufacturer in a carnival party atmosphere, and drinking other people's wine, many boat owners were tempted. When the ARC set sail that year, many ships had small umbrellas hung on their spinnakers, and it was really beautiful to see them all connected together.
On November 8, 2005, ARC kicked off with a parade of ship owners. The parade was led by trumpeters and circled around the yacht club, followed by a flag-raising ceremony. The parade was divided into teams according to the nationality of the boats. The French team only had three boats, and they were overwhelmed by the British team behind them. We invited two friends to participate in Crossing the Ocean, one is Simon who was introduced earlier (Eleven: Character Sketch 2: Simon and Nikola), and the other is Old T. They arrived at the Kannali Islands as scheduled.
The next two weeks were a dizzying array of activity. The four of us went to different lectures separately. My husband and I participated in a lifeboat field exercise and practiced climbing the lifeboat in the swimming pool. It's really not easy. The ladder of the lifeboat is a soft ladder. You need some arm strength and full body coordination when climbing. The rest of the time, my husband is busy repairing various equipment parts all day long, and Simon and I are responsible for the planning and purchasing of food. Simon is an accountant and keeps a quantitative list of everything. Our planned sailing time at sea is thirty days. The recipes and drinks for three meals a day were all down to the pound. They were input into Excel. Finally, Simon said that he would add 20% just in case, and the purchase order was issued. Las Palmas Supermarket supplies ARC every year at this time, so it is quite experienced in dealing with the boatmen, and the service is considerate and efficient. After purchasing at the supermarket, just leave the yacht club's ship number and the supermarket will deliver the items to the bow of the ship on the same day. The supermarket is also responsible for cutting the purchased meat into small pieces, vacuum-packing them one by one, deep-frozen them in the supermarket's freezer, and delivering them to the ship the day before departure. Of course, all of this is not free. Storing so much food on board is a challenge. You have to think about what to eat first and what to eat later. Store what you eat first in a place that is easily accessible and cannot be rummaged through at sea. We bought plastic boxes of different sizes and packed the food into categories according to the order of consumption. After all the food we bought was loaded on the boat, the waterline of "Common Taoist" sank three centimeters!
After a busy day, I completely relaxed at night. The party changes its style every day, and it can be said that there is a lot of fun and delicious food. I was so embarrassed to eat that the four of us only paid a few hundred euros for two weeks every day. We must not starve our sponsors! How about we buy a spinnaker with a parachute. It's a pity that the "comrade" didn't have a rope pole to support the spinnaker, so he gave up. The climax of the party is setting sail on New Year's Eve, when people are drunk and drunk, several cannons are fired, and fireworks decorate the night sky with colorful colors. People return to the ship with a reluctant mood. Tomorrow, they will bid farewell to this short-lived carnival and enter the Atlantic Ocean, a place that does not belong to human life.
