09 November 2010

Interview with Jimmy Cornell

What gave you the idea of setting up the ARC?

In 1985 I’d come back from sailing round the world with my family and was writing for Yachting World. I went down to Las Palmas to interview as many skippers as possible as they were preparing to cross the Atlantic.

As I was interviewing them, three or four boats were leaving every day and it struck me that there was this air of sadness. I thought: these people are all planning to do more or less the same thing, but they’re doing it on their own. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to get together and leave as a group and keep all those social contacts they already had?

I asked skippers what they thought and most said it was a fantastic idea. So I asked the tourist board and port authority if they would help me organise a rally from Las Palmas and they said they would.

When I got back to London I talked to Dick Johnson, then editor of Yachting World. He was extremely enthusiastic and a great supporter from the very beginning. We had a launch party for the ARC a few months later and very soon afterwards we started getting a flood of letters that kept on coming.

What was the first ARC in 1986 like?

The idea was for people to just turn up in Las Palmas - there was only a short entry form. We knew we’d have a lot of boats, maybe 150, but in the end we started with 204 boats. There was a fantastic atmosphere and the send off from Las Palmas was tremendous.

Everything went fine, and after I received the boats in Barbados I came back to London and thought: ‘Very nice. That’s it.’ But then the letters started coming asking if we were going to run a rally next year. So I started a company called World Cruising and we started preparing for the second ARC. 

Again it was extremely successful, with 196 boats, and the rest is history.

How did the ARC develop in the early years?
We started providing tours of the island and entertainment because I wanted people to relax before the Atlantic crossing. I went to the supermarkets and got them to send buses to take people there and deliver shopping to the marina. 

By the third ARC we were encouraging people to have shortwave radio and keep in touch, but the structure of the rally didn’t change much.

When did it become a race as well as a cruising rally?
Fairly early on I persuaded the Royal Ocean Racing Club, which had its own race from Las Palmas to Antigua, to run the race within the framework of the ARC as a racing division. 

But I was very aware from the beginning of keeping the right balance. The ARC had its own profile of an amateur event for amateurs and I wanted to keep it that way.

The nature of that has not changed over the years, has it?

No it hasn’t. We have faster boats, better equipment, certainly much better communications, but the challenges of crossing an ocean are basically unchanged. And that’s why the ARC still has a role and I’m sure its continued success is assured.

Do you think the yachts or the sailors have changed in any way?

There is a perception among many people that because boats are faster than they were 25 years ago they are better. They are not better in every respect. The equipment is better, there are more safety features, there are better aids to navigation, but there are still boats getting into trouble.

Now because we have instant communications people are much more likely to ask for assistance rather than to solve the problems, or even try to solve them, themselves.  This It has happened generally throughout cruising, so it has touched the ARC.

Do you foresee many future changes in ocean cruising?

As I say I think the ARC will continue to be very successful and there will be a need for it. The people who take part may change, the organisers may adapt to the requirements of the participants or the age we live in.

Certainly a cruising boat gives you the opportunity of seeing any part of the world, if you just try hard enough. It is worth the effort, any effort. If you really, really want to go sailing and cruising and see the world, this is the moment to do it. If I you ask me if I’d go round the world again my answer would be: absolutely, if I could, I’d go tomorrow.