They call themselves The Lost Buoys, a nautical pun on the ragtag group led in Neverland by Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up. The three friends in their 20s decided to quit their jobs, buy a boat and sail from Falmouth to Australia.

While other crews in the ARC transatlantic rally arrived in St Lucia in freshly laundered matching crew outfits, Olly Jenkins and his university mates hopped on the dock barechested, tousled and slightly salty, joyously making fast their Moody 37 Good Mood 4 after 25 days at sea. It was a voyage they described as “absolutely epic”, with a tale of breakages and repairs, of learning to problem solve their way across to prove it.

With 140 yachts ranging from 35ft to 105ft sailing at different tempos and spread over a huge tract of the Atlantic, it is almost impossible to sum up the experience of the crossing for an entire ARC. This year, more than ever, people’s accounts seemed so different. Some contended with squalls most of the way across, occasionally with very strong winds, thunder and lightning, sometimes uncomfortable cross-seas. Others had periods of total flat calm.

A tragic loss

The ARC has an exceptional safety record considering the number of miles sailed annually by its several hundred participants. There are risks involved, however, and this year a fatal man overboard and one abandonment sent shockwaves through the fleet at sea.

At 0228UTC on 2 December, at about midnight local time, Ocean Breeze, a VO70 charter yacht, contacted ARC control to advise they had a man overboard and were conducting a search. This happened roughly mid-Atlantic, six days out from St Lucia, and control of the emergency was passed to MRCC Norfolk on the US east coast.

Satcoms, especially Starlink, have revolutionised communications at sea, making WhatsApp messages and calls to and between the fleet quick and easy; all yachts have a list of each other’s mobile numbers. Quickly, Paul Tetlow, managing director of World Cruising was able to provide details of two other yachts 75 miles to the east and they were tasked by the coastguard to assist in conducting a search, along with a large motorboat.

The crewmember in the water was 33-year-old Dag Eresund from Sweden. The incident is expected to be investigated by Austrian authorities, as the yacht was flagged in Austria. According to details released by World Cruising, several crew in the cockpit or stern of the boat were washed off their feet by a wave and Eresund ‘entered the water’. ARC yachts must carry auto-inflation lifejackets with an integral harness and tether for every crewmember and AIS must be fitted into the lifejacket or worn on a belt.

Despite an extensive search by Ocean Breeze, Eresund could not be found. When darkness fell the following day, the search was called off. Following ARC yachts were asked to slow down through the area and keep a look out. No one reported any sightings.

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Within half an hour of the first distress call from Ocean Breeze, World Cruising received another Mayday. This was from a Leopard 45 catamaran, Karolina Viking. Johan and Hanna Sköld and three crew were around 300 miles west of the Cape Verdes and reported they were taking water into the engine room and were no longer able to contain the breach. They’d turned a day earlier to windward and had been making very slow progress to the Cape Verdes islands under their port engine in 4-5m seas when the situation deteriorated.

The affected rudder was leaking at the base of the stock and by that point was hitting the hull in the swell. Water was coming into the engine compartment and an adjacent compartment as well, despite using their high capacity pump. Eventually it overwhelmed some of their electrical systems. They also reported that the engine had worked itself loose from its mountings.

Co-ordination of the emergency with the World Cruising Club team was assigned to MRCC Cape Verde. The crew had also been in touch with their insurers and experts in Sweden so they were aware of what was happening and their advice was, if abandoning the boat, to make sure it was done during daylight.

Difficult transfer

The nearest yacht was Cinderella di Sanremo, a Jongert 20DS owned and sailed by Gerald and Christina Smith, who were crossing with three other crew. The Smiths had extensively refitted their boat in the previous 18 months and were well equipped and provisioned for the passage.

Earlier in the watch, before receiving the Mayday, the watchkeeper on Cinderella di Sanremo, John De Georgio, had briefly observed Karolina Viking on the AIS with a reciprocal course, but by the time the Mayday was received at 0316 over VHF Karolina Viking was already out of the range of the AIS and their exact position could not be ascertained due to poor reception. The Smiths quickly decided to alter course and at 0325 the crew prepared to turn back into the wind to rendezvous with Karolina Viking’s estimated position.

At 0339 MRCC Cape Verde asked them to rendezvous with Karolina Viking as no commercial vessels were within reach. Smith’s crew handed the remaining sails and turned upwind, initially under bare poles and engine, then under main, mizzen and staysail through what he describes as “a huge swell”.

“We were not making much progress,” he adds.

Attempts to raise Karolina Viking on satphone and VHF were unsuccessful but at 04:08 they were alerted to a WhatsApp message on the WCC-hosted group from Viking giving their position. “One of the big lessons for us was how much easier it was when we were using Starlink to communicate through WhatsApp. That changed everything,” Smith says.

After receiving several coordinates from Karolina Viking, Smith used TimeZero software to plot an intercepting course. By 1245 Smith’s crew had a visual on Karolina Viking and raised them on the radio. They began by preparing 300ft of 20mm floating mooring line, which they buoyed with a fender and streamed from the stern.

They made a first approach, “a recce”, from downwind, circling the boat to the windward side first. On the following approach they saw the sea anchor Karolina Viking had deployed from the bow was setting 90° to windward, holding them to the direction of the swell rather than the wind, and decided to abort the attempt fearing it could foul their propeller.

As both boats were pitching heavily Gerald Smith decided that the safest way to evacuate the crew was from a liferaft. He could not risk bringing the boats close together – if the hulls or rigs clashed it could cause serious damage. Karolina Viking’s crew was extremely nervous about stepping off their boat, but Smith says: “I was very confident I could do it.” They got into the liferaft with some of their possessions, and cut the painter.

They quickly separated from the boat – Smith’s impression is that the catamaran drifted away while the raft stayed in position. He made another approach, working his way upwind and at a tangent to the liferaft. The crew of Karolina Viking grabbed the line and made it fast. Pulling it in against the drag of the ballast pockets and drogue was much harder than they anticipated so the line was warped in with a hydraulic winch. When the liferaft was close it was pulled alongside to windward amidships and the rescued crew climbed aboard.

Now with 10 people on board, the Smiths turned and continued to St Lucia.

“It was very traumatic for them, losing their boat, the home they’d been living on board,” says Smith. But the two crews joined forces to sail, keep watch and cook. Despite the food Cinderella had on board, meal planning had to be creative: a total of 165 extra meals were made in the 11 days it took to reach St Lucia.

Karolina Viking has since been salvaged. The insurers were able to charter an oceangoing tug to recover the boat via its standalone Yellowbrick Tracker.

Fire hose conditions

Whatever crews may have prepared for, they got on this ARC. Many reported squalls for most of the crossing, sometimes lasting for hours with winds that could be very strong: 40-knots plus, with torrential rain. Patrick Mulligan and his 27-year-old son, Harry, and friend Rosemary Crinion from Parkstone Yacht Club in Poole, were doing their first transatlantic in the Rustler 42 Sini.

“There were times when we had lightning storms all night and thunder, which was very ominous.” Harry recounts a few hours with rain “like a fire hose. I couldn’t even see the instruments. The temperature sometimes dropped 10°. It was like walking into a chiller.”

Morgan Hayes, the skipper of McConaghy 75 catamaran Jack, had taken a route north of the rhumb line at the behest of professional navigator Mike Broughton, and diverged from the bulk of the fleet. They also encountered squalls and an unsettled swell as the wind backed and veered with them. The chef on board, despite catering for 12 charter crew, “was seasick all the way.”

“I’ve seen a few people kissing the ground when they arrived,” he says.

Nevertheless, I had the impression there was less sail and gear damage than in an average year. There was one broken boom and two broken goosenecks. A poll of the fleet came up with a total of 32 broken sails. Perhaps with the frequency of squalls and the events of the first week at sea, people were sailing more conservatively. Gerald Smith certainly thinks so. “After the man overboard and the rescue, the fleet really slowed down,” he noted.

The more cautious pace didn’t stop the fleet enjoying fine tradewind sailing, with the spinnaker runs and glorious night watches that make an Atlantic crossing so special.

Unlimited adventure

Covering the ARC eight years ago, I remember how surprised I was to meet two owners who’d bought their boats and only learned how to sail that year. Now, it feels like you could walk down almost any of the docks and find a skipper comparatively new to sailing.

Jared Hodge and his family are from Australia (though Jared is originally a Kiwi). They bought their new Fontaine Pajot Samana 59 Deseo and sailed it away from the yard in La Rochelle in April. Hodge was inspired by online videos and admits he knew little about sailing previously but had the funds and time to go travelling, and was looking for adventure. Travelling by boat appealed: “because of where it takes you, it’s unlimited, and because you are self-sufficient.”

After the crossing and a season in the Caribbean, Hodge is intending to return to the Mediterranean and keep Deseo in Croatia while he returns to his business in Australia.

What most of the new owners have in common is a background in business, capital built from building up or selling a company, and the can-do attitude and confidence that this is another project that can be accomplished through diligent research and preparation (their ARC crossings and success prove them right).

Most are choosing a catamaran as their first boat purely for the space and because the prospect of sailing on the level is more agreeable. They join the ARC because it has a strong safety framework and network. They may employ a consultant while building or commissioning a new boat, and often set off with an initial period of onboard coaching from a professional skipper.

Some had used websites such as Ocean CrewLink or Find a Crew to recruit extra people for the ARC crossing, and were looking for specific practical and mechanical skills. Jared Hodge, on the other hand, says he felt confident he could manage. “I’m a fitter by trade and can fix or repair anything,” he says.

Starlink, meanwhile, is continuing to transform cruising by making it practicable to work part time on board or oversee even a large business from a thousand miles offshore. Aboard Jack, for instance, one of the crew took part in a five-hour board meeting at sea.

It’s so straightforward and comparatively inexpensive to be online that ARC crews were making videos and uploading them straight to Instagram, Facebook or TikTok. You could sit at home and watch the sailing, the sunsets, the fishing catches, meals on board, kids playing games, and crews soldiering through the squalls almost in real time.

It was the first year the ARC has been so visible, with content that reached far beyond established sailing followers to an audience of many millions. This is a game changer likely to have a far-reaching impact on sailing.

Trip of a lifetime

The days of the small boat run on a shoestring are waning from the ARC. These are a rarity, though there still are crews whose achievements remind us that you don’t need a treasure chest of money or a swanky new yacht to sail across the Atlantic or around the world.

Olly Jenkins and his friends Angus Woodman and Henry Hall – the ‘Lost Buoys’ – met at Bristol University and went on to established careers (Jenkins is a doctor and Woodman and Hall are engineers). Jenkins, now 27, says he “came up with this idea that I want to do a big trip, the trip of the lifetime. It aligned perfectly with Angus and Henry, and we managed to save up enough to quit our jobs at the same time.”

The three clubbed together to buy a Moody 37 for £40,000. During the last year they refitted Good Mood 4 in Falmouth. “It was very tough. We had a timeframe to do it all and were doing easily 7 till 10pm every day flat out for about two months. It escalated more and more as we realised what we had to do and obviously doing it ourselves meant it was slower,” Jenkins says.

The work, including an engine overhaul, new watermaker, solar panels, adding a Parasailor, an electrical upgrade and new safety gear, cost them an additional £15-20,000.

They were joined by another uni friend, Jamie Jarvis-Bicknell, and the four left Las Palmas on the first stage of a voyage they plan will take them across the Pacific to Australia. On their second day at sea, Jenkins sipped a morning coffee and was immediately ill. The crew noticed the water coming out of the tap was “swimming pool blue” and deduced that the calorifier must have been full of the tank cleaner they’d used to flush out the tanks. They decided to make a brief stop in Cape Verde to refuel and top up with water.

Not long after leaving Cape Verde, the spinnaker halyard block exploded. As they tried to douse the Parasailor the fishing reel screamed and an 8ft marlin rose out of the water behind them. A few days later, their pole snapped and they made a repair by cutting it in the middle and shortening it. After that they had to deal with a steering cable break close to the quadrant by extending and reattaching the wire using Dyneema cord and wire rope clamps.

The ‘Lost Buoys’ are rightly proud of finding solutions for all these problems, even when they weren’t sure they could. “When you’re in that bubble and something goes wrong it’s easy for self-doubt to creep in,” Jenkins admits. “Even the newest and most luxurious boats have had problems. You need to stay calm and think methodically. There is always a way.”

As some of the youngest sailors in the fleet, it’s telling that they were among those really relishing life at sea without always-on connectivity. “It was very epic just having that time removed from the riffraff of everyday life and being forced to get to know things through conversations, without Google to ask,” Jenkins says.

Next year the ARC will celebrate its 40th anniversary. The rally reflects large changes over those four decades of ocean cruising, most significantly the increased affluence of working age owners and crew, the technology, space and comforts that they seek, and the complexity of yachts that brings. For its next anniversary, however, managing director Paul Tetlow will be introducing a special class for yachts 40ft and under. “The first entry was a Contessa 32,” he says with delight.

It will be a class for skippers or double-handers looking for a less costly adventure or a special, more traditional challenge – longer at sea with less: less water, less power, less connectivity. My bet is there’ll also be more catamarans than ever because there’s not much demand these days for less of anything.

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