The flagship event in the global portfolio of World Cruising Club (WCC) rallies, is building on the success of the 2008 Rally with the announcement today that the entry list has opened for a second edition. Billed as an adventure of a lifetime, World ARC 2010 will leave the Caribbean in January 2010, cruising across the World’s oceans on a circumnavigation of the globe, returning to the Caribbean 14 months later.

World Cruising Club Director Andrew Bishop said, “The entire WCC team is delighted with the way that World ARC has come together and is progressing. We planned long and hard to ensure its success and that effort is paying off for all our participants, their families and friends and the very hard-working team at World Cruising Club. In taking the decision to announce today that we will be running a second Rally in 2010 we can now combine all our knowledge and expertise with some new ideas for the next World ARC.”

Ever since the concept for the inaugural World ARC Rally was announced by World Cruising in 2006, there has been a continual stream of international enquiries coming into the WCC Cowes-based office.

Forty-one yachts from 13 nations are participating in the 2008 Rally, which set off from St. Lucia back in January. Since then they have cruised into the Pacific via the Panama Canal, down to Ecuador and on to the Galapagos Islands and the Marquesas.

During April and May, they cruise through the Marquesas, Tuamotos and Society Islands before departing from Bora Bora in mid-May and heading towards the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji and Vanuatu. Then it’s across to Australia and a cruise inside the Great Barrier Reef, before regrouping for the leg across the top of Australia and the start of the Indian Ocean stage.

From Bali, the Rally calls at the remote island of Cocos-Keeling to reach Mauritius in October. Then on via the French island of Reunion, to arrive in South Africa, cruising slowly southwards to be in Cape Town for Christmas 2008. In January 2009 the fleet heads out from Cape Town to Brazil, via the tiny mid-Atlantic island of St. Helena. From Salvador de Bahia, its north along the coast to Recife. The yachts are due back in the Caribbean next March. They will have sailed approximately 25,000 nautical miles.

For more information, visit www.worldcruising.com .