Rally?

Once accepted that we did not feel like investing more than a couple of years in this adventure, what could we do to maximize our chances of success?

After all, the main purpose of a voyage like this is to enjoy the visited places: to maximize the time available for this, it's therefore important:

- having a fast and well-maintained boat, to minimize passage time and the risk of having to spend a lot of harbor-time to perform repairs.

- reducing to the minimum possible all time-wasters like bureaucracy, search for hard-to-find items, third-world bureaucracy of all sorts....

.....and this is what makes joining an organised Rally an attractive option:

What is a Rally?

- basically, a group of yachts sails along a predefined route and calendar; on passage, daily radio checks allow position reporting and, if needed, yachts may help each other (it happened!) and when a port is reached, there is a ground support organization that takes care of:

- ensuring reserved berthing (where possible)
- helping in dealing with the authorities
- organizing social events during the stopovers (parties, sightseeing trips, folk dances...)
- bringing spare parts (previously requested by radio) from Europe
- helping in sourcing locally spare parts, technicians, etc.
- managing, in specific danger-areas, the appropriate safety measures

- in the main stopovers, the calendar is organized in such a way to let crews free to sail and/or visit the area as they wish.

- if everything works as intended, the risk that unforeseen accidents could spoil the trip or, even worse, compromise the whole voyage, should be minimized.

FANTASTIC!! ...where's the problem, then?

- obviously, there are some drawbacks:

- the price for joining a Rally is quite high, although justified by the cost of providing a support team following the fleet around the world; if everything works, one may remain with the feeling of having spent a lot of money for nothing.

- the route and the schedule are fixed, especially for what concerns departure dates: if a boat is not ready, they will be mercilessly left behind! (and the support team will be gone as well!!).

- the program is tailored to large boats: even if not impossible for medium-sized boats, they risk to always enter port when the others are about to leave!

- you cannot choose your company, and one may or may not get along well with the other participants. 

- furthermore, and this gave us a few concerns, it's hard to get solid feedback from people who have already done that, while we got a few rumors indicating that there have been more than a few cases of unhappy customers.

Which Rallies can we choose from?

At the time, the event which had been run since several years was the "Blue Water Rally", starting every two years from Gibraltar in october.

Just recently, the organisers of the well-proven ARC trans-atlantic rally had announced their own circumnavigating Rally, the "World ARC".

Pro's and con's?

BWR:

Pro's:

- well proven itinerary and organization
- departure and arrival in Europe (Gibraltar)
- not too many participants (about thirty?)
- family-orientated approach

Con's:

- concerns about the return via gulf of Aden (risk of pirate attacks!) and subsequently the Red Sea.
- some half-spoken complaints in the past?

World-ARC:

Pro's:

- well known organization (although the circumnavigation was new for them)
- interesting alternative for the return leg via Cape of Good Hope-St.Helena-Caribbean-Azores, instead of the dangerous Gulf of Aden-Red Sea

Con's:

- a mildly competitive formula (is it a cruise or a race?)
- the route via Cape of Good Hope is much longer, which forces all the voyage to be much more hurried than the BWR (in general, this rally seems tailored for large, fast and fully crewed boats)
- departure and return in the Caribbean

SO, WHAT WAS THE DECISION?

Actually, there were two decisions to take:
1) whether or not to join a Rally and
2) if yes, which one

After a lot of debate, also in view of the cost, we decided that joining a Rally would have given us better chances of a successful cruise.   Despite the concerns about the return via Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, we finally opted for the Blue Water Rally because we felt our boat to be too small and under-crewed for the World-ARC's very long return leg via Cape of Good Hope.
 

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