Rodney Bay in the north of the Caribbean island of St Lucia is currently attracting the 140 or so yachts taking part in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers like a magnet. Most of the boats are about to make landfall and are expected to reach the finish line in the coming days. The first have already made it. With the exception of a few stragglers, the ARC Plus fleet, which is just over half the size, has reached its destination of Grenada.
The first ship in the ARC fleet to arrive was the Italian-flagged "12 Nacira 69" on Friday night. It took her just under twelve days to sail 3188 miles. The nine-man crew were delighted with the line honours on their arrival at night. They sailed in the Racing Division, in which only 17 yachts, the fewest of the participants, had entered. A total of 141 yachts started from Las Palmas on 21 November. However, some had to turn back due to breakage, Two were even abandoned after accidents.
The statistics of the first yacht to cross the finish line speak for themselves: the crew led by skipper Federico Dosso recorded a top speed of 28 knots and a maximum distance travelled of almost 400 nautical miles. It was only on the morning of the start that navigator Ambrogio Beccaria had decided in favour of the more southerly, supposedly less windy route towards the Caribbean. "We didn't expect to get so much wind on the last few miles," says Beccaria. "The boat is a rocket."
It was not the first Transat in the young Italian's professional career: in 2019, Beccaria won the Mini-Transat as skipper in the series boat classification on the Pogo 3 "Geomag". Lennart Burke subsequently bought her from him to compete in the 2021 Mini-Transat on the renamed "Vorpommern" boat.
Just one and a half hours later after the "12 Nacira 69", the second ship to cross the finish line was the cat "Guyader Saveol", a Marsaudon TS5.
Many yachts in the Cruising Division will also be fighting for every mile shortly before the finish. This is because there will also be a large number of honours for the sailors who finish at the awards ceremony on 17 December - but not just for the fastest.
The crews can expect a welcome team in St Lucia to take over the lines. However, as with the start in Las Palmas, parties will probably not be able to take place at all or only to a limited extent due to the pandemic. The ARC sailors do not have to go into quarantine as they had to take a PCR test before setting sail.
