10th Annual NARC Rally

North American Rally to the Caribbean
2009 marks the 10th Annual NARC Rally from Newport to St. Maarten with a stop in Bermuda. In celebration we are making the counterintuitive move of making the Rally Free* to All Participants. We would like to get as many boats as possible aboard for the annual passage south. Our goal has always been to gather as many boats as possible heading south at about the same time to join together for the comraderie, socials, and of course a few discounts to save money. Making the rally free should convince anyone planning to head south this winter from the New England area to come to Newport and depart with our fleet.

If you are a private boat owner looking for additonal crew for the passage south or a delivery skipper or full time skipper looking for an extra hand or two to make the passage easier, please let us know. We can help provide qualified free crew that will pay their own way to and from the boat and crew for you for free. This service is provided by Offshore Passage Opportunities and is free to rally participants. Just call or e-mail for details.

One reason we are making the rally free is because each year we get several boat owners who are also in Newport or nearby and departing about the same time. They ask what SSB frequency we are using and if they can take part in our weather briefings, our socials, and radio net. Rather than be a hard-headed and tell them “No they can not be part of our Rally becasue they missed the sign up deadline and unless they pay the rally fee”, we always said yes, so we decided to invite everyone to join for free this year. So there is no rally fee. However we ask that skippers and boat owners that want to join us send in the $125 per person crew fee for at least two people when they register for the rally. We will get the number of crew you plan to have aboard two weeks before the rally so we can tell the caterers and restaurants for the socials so they can plan for us and you can pay for additional crew at our first skippers briefing in Newport when we gather in October.

Benefits of the rally include $1.00 per foot dockage in Newport starting the week before departure (first come first serve as there are limitations), free departure weather and Gulf Steam info and head tax waiver in Bermuda ($35.00 per person). We also organize socials in Newport and Bermuda and duty free fuel in Bermuda.

If you have any questions please e-mail or call us anytime. To join we ask that you fill out a short for about you and your boat and to pay a $250 deposit fee for the first two crew. The $125 per person crew fee for the rest of the crew over two people can be paid in Newport at the skippers briefing.

*The Rally is free but there is a $125 per person fee to cover socials.