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Elaine Bunting speaks to five very different crews, all of who had a very different Atlantic crossing experience during this year s ARC
On the first night of their Atlantic crossing, a ‘dark shadow’ passed 100m away from Christian and Manuela Lücking’s boat. It was unlit and not moving. Unnerved, Christian Lücking called the Coastguard. Two hours later, the Coastguard called back asking them to return and check the vessel.
When they returned, they found a wooden fishing boat, around 10m long, with a 40hp Yamaha outboard on the back. It was deserted and empty apart from a solitary lifejacket hooked on the bow. The Coastguard concluded that it had been packed with migrants fleeing through Mauritania, and abandoned after they swam ashore to one of the Canary Islands.
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At the end of a year when the calendar has been mostly crossed out or marked provisional, families who stuck to their cruising plans to make an Atlantic crossing or even advanced them, were breaking free, as Elaine Bunting recently discovered
The Covid-19 pandemic derailed the plans of around two-thirds of the crews planning to take part in the annual ARC Atlantic crossing and ARC+ from Gran Canaria to St Lucia, but 76 crews made it despite the difficulties (24 in ARC+ via Cape Verde and 52 in the non-stop ARC). These included a number who advanced longer term plans when they realised that going this year might be better than staying.