The Great Escape
The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers has always been about providing a framework and a deadline around which sailors can work to.
Some form or reassurance if you will - and, by God, if there was ever a year in which reassurance was required it was 2020 – a year in which we all learnt to live with uncertainty. Yet, somehow, with all the travel restrictions in place, the ARC went ahead and, with the storm clouds once more gathering over Europe and basic human freedoms being sacrificed in order to control Covid, the ARC never felt more vital.
We often talk of sailing as a form of escape. But this year it's escape in earnest. In the Canary Islands, where refugee boats from Africa arrive with regularity on the road to escape, the mass depart of yachts taking to the seas in search of freedom can be a tough circle to square. Yet this year was very different. There
