ARC 2022 Atlantic Ocean Crossing (Part 1 of 3)- Preparations and Planning

(Note: This is the first in a three-part series we will be publishing about our Atlantic Ocean Crossing.)

All of our hearts were racing with excitement and anticipation as we raised Coronado’s sails and waited for the sound of the start horn for the ARC 2022 Atlantic Ocean crossing. Sailing across an ocean is a bucket list item for many sailors, and for us, it was one of our biggest dreams. An adventure unlike any other – and one that can be both extremely challenging and highly rewarding.

We were joining the ARC 2022, the annual Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. It is a rally of over 150 boats that cross the Atlantic Ocean together, sailing 2700 NM from Gran Canaria to St Lucia. We had arrived in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, two weeks before the start. Our preparations for the ocean crossing had really begun months earlier. Spots fill up fast, so we submitted our registration at the beginning of 2022, before we ever left Fort Lauderdale, and we had been preparing safety gear and planning throughout the year.

ARC Rally – Social Events and Detailed Preparations

Meeting all the other sailors and boat owners in Las Palmas was one of the highlights of doing the ARC. It was exciting to meet so many people who were also taking off for a few years to explore the world on their sailboats. It really felt like we were in our tribe of like-minded friends. There were a few people who were going to sail double-handed, but most had invited crew aboard to help with the crossing as we had. John’s sister, Cynthia, had joined Coronado in October and sailed with us all the way from Italy, and our friend Shelly, whom we had sailed with from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas in the Baja Ha-Ha rally, flew into Las Palmas two weeks before departure.  

The ARC events included really fun social activities like volunteer tree planting trips in the local mountains, happy hours, parades, and costume parties. The ARC team also held valuable informational seminars on provisioning, weather, safety, and rigging checks. They have strict safety requirements and come aboard for a thorough safety inspection before departure. We have extensive safety equipment on Coronado, but we found the inspection to be very reassuring that we had done a good job of thinking through it all and had what we needed (and then some!) in place.

During our two weeks of preparation, we had a lot of fun and learned a lot. I don’t think it was until after everything was finished and we were in St. Lucia that both John and I realized just how stressful the preparations for the ocean crossing really are for the boat owners. We always have to be self-sufficient on our boat, but preparing for three weeks of being so far offshore (and having crew you feel personally responsible for) is a different mindset and a very different kind of stress. John was checking and rechecking all of our equipment and systems. I was trying to sort through how much food and what to bring. We had thought through a detailed 90 min safety briefing for our crew and ensured we had a robust emergency medical kit on board.

Provisioning 

Provisioning for an ocean crossing is no small feat. Happy hour conversation at all of the ARC events frequently turned to how much meat people planned to bring in freezers, what we were all doing for meal planning, and how much extra water everyone was planning to have on board. We had four people on board and estimated the crossing would take between two and three weeks, depending on wind. We allowed for at least an extra week of food as a safety net. (We had more than that on Coronado, but it’s because we have the storage space.) That totals out to 90 meals or over 300 individual servings of food!

We did several large store trips in Gibraltar (packing most of it back to the boat in our backpacks!) because I didn’t know if we would have trouble finding things in Gran Canaria, but that turned out to really be unnecessary. The stores in Las Palmas are all experts at helping boats provision for the ocean crossing. The local grocery store (Hyper Dino) will take all of your groceries (think three full carts!) and pack them into plastic bins that are then delivered to your boat. The local beer and wine store also takes orders, including large bottled water for spares, and will deliver as well. My favorite convenience was the local butcher. We were able to put in an order for over 5 Kg / 35 lbs of an assortment of meats (chicken, ground pork & beef, homemade sausage, pork tenderloin, and even meatballs) which they froze already portioned and individually packaged into 500g serving sizes. You could customize your entire order, and again, they delivered all the frozen packages directly to the boat. Then all we had to do was figure out how to fit it all into the freezer. (Shelly did a great job on this task and had some great Tetris-type packing skills!) I also have to say I’ve never been so grateful for Coronado’s large freezer. For context – there are boats who sailed with us on the ARC that only had a small icebox or no freezer at all! There was also a beautiful fruit and vegetable market in Las Palmas, and we were able to stock up on lots of fresh food to take with us as well.

Watch Schedule and Daily Roles

One of the important parts of any multiple-day passage is that we have someone on watch and at the helm 24 hours a day. The person on watch is responsible for monitoring the conditions, wind, speed, and course, watching for other boats who may get close to us, and checking radar as needed for squalls. (We always run radar at night to watch for other boat traffic and weather. Radar is truly our eyes in the dark.) For the majority of our passages, this is something John and I split between the two of us doing four hours on/four hours off, but having extra crew allowed us to have shorter watches and longer breaks in between. With four people on board we did a set schedule of 3 hours on/9 hours off. John was on from 0800 to 1100 each morning, and he would come back on at 2000 to 2300 at night. The set schedules worked well, for the most part. It is harder for the people who have the middle of the night shifts (Shelly had 2300 to 0200/ and I took the 0200 to 0500 shift) the entire time. Some boats do a rotating shift, so each person gets a chance to have a sunset shift and a sunrise shift over the course of a few days. We opted for the set schedule because it has the advantage of letting people get into a rhythm for sleep and awake time. (The downside is that I was wide awake every day at 2 AM for about 4 days after we reached St. Lucia!) You know when you have to be at the helm, and the rest of the time, all the crew can get into their own rhythms for relaxing or napping. It also makes sure everyone has plenty of sleep.

To help keep Coronado running smoothly, we also had four rotating jobs that we all shared. We posted a schedule of who was in what role each day.

Galley Guru: This was the cook for the day, responsible for making lunch and dinner for the entire crew, and washing all dishes/cleaning the galley. This worked very well. It meant once every four days you cooked, but the other three days you were served your meals and could relax. Everyone made delicious food, and we had lots of variety. Everything from tacos, to BBQ pork tenderloin, chicken curry, to homemade chili.

Deck/Bilge Check: This person checked the bilges for water each day – finding any leaks or issues early is a must. They also walked the deck, checking all the lines for any chaffing, looking at the rigging for any signs of wear, and making sure no pins or pieces might have come undone. Sailing 24 hours a day is hard on rigging and lines, so checking it once a day helps find any issues right away. (Side note – we had some chaffing on one of our mainsail reefing lines the first week – but we caught it right away and have been able to work around it!)

Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior: Cynthia was our official Secretary of the Interior for the passage. Coronado has never been so clean. She cleaned on her shift every morning, among other things, lovingly sweeping away all our crumbs left at the helm from snacking on night watch. But each day, she had an assistant, and this person picked one or two things to clean. It could be wiping out the cockpit, sweeping the salon floor, or wiping off countertops. Doing this daily helped keep Coronado clean and tidy, which felt good when you are all living in such close quarters for three weeks.

Resource Manager: This person helped check the batteries, monitored running the generator (which we had to do a few times a day to top up our electricity to run all our appliances, navigation equipment, autopilot, and the watermaker), as well as logging water levels in our tanks throughout the day. We didn’t have any problem keeping our tanks full, apart from a few days when we had to conserve because the sea state was too rough for the water maker to run well. (If the waves are too high and air gets in the intake lines, the watermaker shuts off.) John usually takes this role and manages the watermaker, but it was great to have everyone know what our energy and water usage look like each day.

Up Next – Part 2: We Set Sail! Daily Life at Sea, Flying Fish, and Weather Routing