World Cruising, the organisers of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, are to launch ‘World ARC’, a circumnavigation that will take 20 months.

The event is scheduled to leave Gran Canaria in November 2007 for the Caribbean and will continue to the Panama Canal, the South Pacific and Australia, with the option of returning via South East Asia to the eastern Med, or via South Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean and Europe.

To ease the burden of dealing with officials when clearing customs, there will be a multi-lingual team in each port to look after participants both ashore and afloat. Weather and routing advice will be provided for each ocean leg, and there will be an event website with yacht positions, news and pictures for family and friends.

For more details, contact World Cruising Club: mail@worldcruising.com, tel 01983 296060, or see them at the London Boat Show, stand B704.

Find out how to prepare for an Atlantic crossing in this month’s PBO. We interview the skippers of ARC 2005 and see how they modify their rigs for downwind sailing, manage their power consumption, communications and much more. We’ll then be catching up with them in March’s PBO to see how they got on.