Atlantic rally or crossing alone: what to check in the policy first

On 22 November 2026 the ARC, the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, leaves Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The organiser, World Cruising Club, gives the route as about 2,700 nautical miles to Rodney Bay in Saint Lucia, 18 to 21 days for an average yacht and around 150 boats every year. Entries range from 27 to 100 feet and include sailing yachts with one or more hulls and even motor boats. Plenty of British and Irish crews make the same passage in the same weeks without joining anything. Both groups tend to ask one question late in the day: does it make a difference to the insurer whether the yacht sails in a fleet or alone?

The organiser itself has just shown that a start date is not a promise. The ARC+ fleet, which sails by way of Cape Verde to Grenada, was due to leave on Sunday 8 November; the start was postponed because of the weather, at first to Wednesday 11 November. That matters more to a hull policy than any entry number. In a fleet or alone, the decision about weather, boat and crew stays with the skipper, and after a loss it is that decision the insurer will ask about. A rally does not take it over, and no wording treats a published start time as a reason to leave.

The first thing to read in the contract is the cruising area. Many European hull policies are written for home waters, the Channel, the Baltic or the Mediterranean, and stop well short of mid-Atlantic. A crossing usually needs an agreed extension or a worldwide area, arranged before departure and confirmed in writing. Check as well whether the policy sets conditions for ocean passages: some ask for regular position reports or a logbook kept in a set form, some for a minimum number of experienced crew, some for a recent rig or survey report. A tracker handed out by a rally may or may not satisfy a reporting duty. If the wording names a particular method, that is the one that counts.

The second point is the racing clause. According to the organiser the ARC has a racing division for IRC rated monohulls; those yachts may not motor and must comply with World Sailing's Offshore Special Regulations, Category 1. Hull wordings differ widely here. Some include racing of any kind, some include club racing only, some exclude racing altogether or exclude masts, spars and sails while racing. Whether the cruising fleet of a rally counts as racing is rarely spelled out. The German wordings we work with show the whole range between their three tiers, which is why the question is worth putting to your own insurer in writing before you enter, not after a dismasting.

Third, look at what the contract says about the condition of the boat and about fault. An exclusion for unseaworthiness at the start of the voyage is common, and so is a reduction for gross negligence. On an ocean passage both come down to evidence: a dated rig inspection, engine service invoices, liferaft and lifejacket service records, a crew list with experience, and the weather information used for the decision to sail, noted in the log with the time. Liability deserves the same look. See whether third party liability applies in every country on the route, whether crew members are covered for claims against each other and whether the sum insured meets what marinas at the destination ask for.

So what does the fleet change? In our experience very little in the contract and a good deal in the preparation. The organiser's equipment rules, a fixed date by which the boat has to be ready and other yachts within radio range make a loss less likely and easier to explain afterwards. None of that replaces a clause. A sailing yacht or catamaran that crosses alone carries the same duties and simply has to organise them without a checklist from a rally office. One more date belongs in the plan: NOAA defines the Atlantic hurricane season as 1 June to 30 November, and some policies restrict the Caribbean in those months, so read what applies if the boat is still there next summer.