CRUISING IN COMPANY

RALLY ENTRIES ARE BOOMING LIKE NEVER BEFORE – WE DISCOVER THE ALLURE OF CRUISING IN COMPANY. PLUS OUR ESSENTIAL LISTING OF ORGANISED RALLIES TO TAKE YOU ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

There is a pent up enthusiasm for experiences right now. After nearly two years of limitations, many of us are hankering for wider horizons, to escape the Zoom meetings, look beyond the box-set, and sense freedom once again. But international travel is still not straightforward: entry regulations and health checks vary frequently, and simply keeping on top of the ever-changing rules is time-consuming and stressful.

So it’s no surprise that organised rallies are seeing a resurgence. Already the default option for many cruising sailors planning to take on a first transocean passage, many rallies are gathering bumper entries for 2022 and beyond after cruisers postponed their 2020/21 plans. But there are also growing numbers of sailors prompted by the pandemic to make the leap to long-term cruising, and for whom the safety net of an organiser on call, who’ll keep on top of the health protocols and even catch your lines on arrival, was the deciding factor.

Jeremy Wyatt of the World Cruising Club, organisers of the ARC transatlantic rally among other events, is seeing a trend: “We are definitely getting some interest from sailors because of the extra administration that Covid is causing them as a cruiser.

“But I would also say there’s been a definite mindset of people reviewing their lives, looking at what their priorities are and saying ‘No, we need to go and do what we talked about doing’. So in terms of numbers of enquiries and how it’s looking for next year, it’s really gone crazy.”

Wyatt has noticed that an increasing proportion of enquiries come from the younger families. “The 40-something families are the ones deciding, ‘Let’s go and do it. Why are we sitting in the rat race?’”