Rules And Regulations
The Rally is open to any seaworthy boats of any size. We work with the assumption that anyone planning to go offshore to the Caribbean in the fall understands how to get his or her boats ready and will be prepared before departure. In order to personally assist each skipper we will be organizing an adopt-a-boat program between a professional captain and an amateur skipper to help answer questions not only about the boats preparedness but also about the voyage ahead.
Although all the boats will be departing together we are looking at two types of crews heading south in the fall. The first are the professional skippers delivering boats south and second the amateur sailor taking his/her boat to the Caribbean for the winter. We are taking advantage of this mix of talent to organize the rally and to help others learn the difference between sailing and sailing offshore. There will be two days of Seminars for new Rally participants on Thursday and Friday Oct 28th and 29th. The fee will be $500 per boat for all the crew to attend. Not $500 per person, $500 per boatfull.
Pro-am Division - We encourage professionally crewed boats to join the rally. They are a wealth of knowledge for others to learn from. The rally is free to professionally crewed boats, but there is the $150 per head charge for the socials and discounts.
Amateur/Owner Division - Boat owners taking their boats south for the first time.
As part of the pre departure "check-in" (check-out?), each professional skipper will be introduced to a skipper in the amateur division and together they will go over the "checklist" of recommended preparedness for sailing offshore. Any gross deficiencies will be reported to the rally organizers and we will take steps to see what we can do. This will also be a good time for the amateur skipper to ask questions one-on-one with a professional skipper, go over charts and the approach to Bermuda, and any other questions that he/she might not ask in a public forum.
