It's the same picture every year: from October onwards, the marinas in the Canary Islands start to fill up more and more. Crews from all over Europe arrive on the islands with their boats to make final preparations for the passage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. Many spend several weeks repairing the boat and provisioning. The northeast trade wind, which everyone is waiting for, is expected to arrive in mid to late November at the earliest.
Until then, places in the marinas will become increasingly scarce. In the popular harbours on Lanzarote and Gran Canaria in particular, there will be no more space at some point: all berths are taken! In Las Palmas, this is not only due to the individual long-distance crews. In fact, hundreds of sailors and their yachts gather here every autumn to take part in the two major rallies organised by the British company World Cruising Club: the "Atlantic Rally for Cruisers" and the "Atlantic Rally for Cruiser plus".
The big transatlantic rallies exacerbate the space problem
The former takes a direct, non-stop route to the Caribbean, while the Plus option makes a detour to Cape Verde before travelling westwards from there. The much smaller harbour of Mindelo on the Cape Verde Islands also regularly has space problems when hundreds of ships arrive at the same time.
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In Las Palmas di Gran Canaria, there has always been resentment about the large ARC fleets in recent years. Especially as the marina is sometimes even fenced off for the participants; the boats of many local berth holders are then packed into packets or moored outside the marina area. Long-distance travellers from out of town are often not even given a berth.
The ARC is an important economic factor
This situation is not nice for those affected, but it is understandable: the ARC crews pour a lot of money into the coffers of the service companies, ship chandlers, restaurants, pubs and cafés located around the harbour. The rally has long since become an important economic factor here.
However, the space problem has recently become more acute as more and more large catamarans are taking part in the rallies. In the past, they were all moved to the neighbouring, smaller harbour basin of the Club de Vela Latina. However, there are now so many twin-hulled boats that moorings have to be made available for them in the large sports boat marina - and there are always at least two for each cat!
As a result, the anchor fields in front of the marina became increasingly crowded - and therefore unsafe. Anchormen could no longer position their boats at a sufficient distance from each other. The risk of colliding with a neighbouring boat increased.
Additional anchor zones should provide a remedy
The port authority has apparently also recognised this and set up three additional anchor zones. These should help to ease the situation. They are located to the north and south of the marina (see photos).
However, it should be noted that these new anchor zones must be filled one after the other. In other words, zone two is only opened when zone one is full. And they are only available for a limited time. This year, they will be available for one month, from 25 October to 25 November.
One day earlier, on 24 November, the ARC fleet will leave. After that, calm should return to Las Palmas and there should be enough space available for other blue water crews. Paul Tetlow, Managing Director of the World Cruising Club, thanked the Port of Las Palmas for these arrangements. "The move shows the great support of the Port of Las Palmas to accommodate all the cruising sailors who want to be in Las Palmas at such a busy time."
