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Lexington - Captain Bob : 4/5/17. 11°. 47' south. 142° 18 ' west



So I was asked the question "Is the fee to join the World Arc worth it?" That is a tall question. I actually listened to a talk by Charlie Simon addressing the question. He has a book out called "QUICK START TO CIRCUMNAVIGATION ". He did the World Arc in 2015-2016 I think.
My first thought is that all of this is expensive. Just having a boat is expensive. Fixing a boat up to circumnavigate adds a much greater height to the bar. The answer gets back to how much time do you have and how much money do you have. In general if you have enough money and want to do a circumnavigation with the least trouble then using World Cruising has value. They sell their services as concierge sailing. So far the two biggest factors were the Panama Canal and the Galapagos. From what I hear those two adventures cause a lot of anxiety and paperwork. We were ushered thru the canal in a very organized fashion. We had to know our stuff but World Cruising facilitated our success. They had paid the fees ahead of time, arranged for extra lines that we needed, arranged line handlers, arranged for advisors that had actually done Arc boats before and arranged our education so nothing was that strange in the transit. For the Galapagos, World Cruising had two agents on our boat with the officials checking our boats. There were like 6 people doing their inspection all at once. We needed four copies of our passport photos with one being color. World Cruising had all this in a packet that they handed to us upon arrival.
All of this sort of stuff can be done with moderate effort by the average sailor. If you have more time and the desire to figure things out by yourself then you may want to network thru people like Seven Seas Cruising Association and do it on your own.  Another thing is that the World Arc facilitates 30 boats traveling together. Sailors naturally help each other. There are many examples of very kind help between boats. On the longest passage one boat lost the use of their water maker. Another boat passed a hose to them and filled their tanks. They would have done ok but that made it much less stressful.
We saw a young couple is Nuka Hiva who wanted to clean our hull to make a little money to keep their kitty full. They were doing the same thing we were but on a shoestring budget with no real timetable. They were probably spending vastly less money and getting more out of it because they were spending much more time.
So in conclusion, only the individual can answer the question. I am in the middle of doing it and I am sure I am crazy for doing it. I left a medical practice where lots of things were done for me and I was paid to be there. Now I am spending money to camp out on a boat and fix things myself. Go figure! May fair winds fill your sails with better advice than mine! Bob

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