January 22, 2026 By Carol Britton Meyer
Longtime Hingham resident Dan Power recently completed the voyage of a lifetime, spending 20 days at sea as a crew member on a 53-foot sailboat that crossed from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands (part of Spain) to St. Lucia in the Caribbean as a participant in the 2025 World Cruising Club’s annual Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC).
One of the “real anchors of every day were the magnificent sunrises and sunsets,” Power recently told the Hingham Anchor.
At the end of the trip, Power spent a week recovering and relaxing in St. Lucia following the challenging but rewarding 2,843-mile non-stop voyage. The event started before Thanksgiving, with most crews arriving home in time for Christmas.
“There was no land in sight, nowhere to stop – it was just beautiful, open ocean,” he explained. In between crew members’ watch schedules, the adventure featured “some peaceful moments” and opportunities for reflection, reading, and occasionally texting photos and messages to their families through satellite internet service, when available.
Each crew member was on watch for three hours followed by several off, during which they enjoyed a meal and slept amidst rolling 10- to 12-foot waves every several seconds that caused the boat to move in all three dimensions.
‘Once you leave the shore, you’re on your own’
“It’s a big responsibility. Once you leave the shore, you’re on your own, and the only way out is to keep going. Once you leave the harbor, there’s nowhere to be dropped off, and you’re committed,” Power said. “The crew supports the boat owner, who tries to keep everyone safe out there 1,000 miles from anywhere.”
ARC celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2025, marking four decades of transatlantic sailing from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean that culminates in an awards ceremony in St. Lucia. “We didn’t come in first, but the trip was lots of fun,” Power said.
As background, while searching for a new job after being laid off from a technology position in May 2025, Power’s next-door-neighbor Dave Sibor mentioned that a newly retired colleague with extensive sailing experience knew a couple living on their boat in London who had a friend looking for crew to participate in the 2025 ARC.
Part of a flotilla
After several conversations with his neighbor’s friend and the owner of the boat looking for crew, Power was invited to become part of a four-member crew as part of the 140-boat 2025 ARC flotilla – a sailing method used “for safety reasons and camaraderie,” Power explained. Besides Power, two of the crew were from New York. The only woman member was from Austria.
The voyage is “all about the trade winds – the steady, reliable winds that blow from Africa to the Caribbean” that help carry boats safely to their destinations, he said. These winds also carry red dust from the Sahara Desert that was sometimes visible on the boat.
This adventure also included rain almost every day for about 20 minutes and occasional squalls that Power likened to “a galloping horse passing by, and then it was over and done.”
The crew enjoyed fresh food for the first 10 days or so, and once that ran out, frozen and canned items. “Dinner was the big event of the day. Two crew members liked to cook, so I usually helped with the cleanup,” he said with a smile.
‘You had to pay attention every minute’
The biggest challenge of the trip, he said, was “the way the boat moved. You had to pay attention and hold onto something almost every minute to remain steady and not fall over.”
Power has enjoyed sailing since the age of 10. “It’s a lot of fun – something I’ve always done as a hobby.” Over time, his family has enjoyed many sailing excursions, including to Massachusetts and Cape Cod, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine.
So, it’s not surprising that after years of sailing, he would embark on an amazing adventure such as the ARC rally. He likened the attraction to it to an avid mountain climber scaling Mount Everest.
“As a boat lover, this type of adventure has been on my bucket list since I was a kid,” Power recalled. “When the opportunity arose, I jumped at it. It gave me a great feeling of joy and accomplishment.”
The next step in his boating journey is taking a class at Hingham Yacht Club beginning at the end of January to become a licensed captain, which will qualify him to deliver other people’s boats from “point A to point B who may not have the skill or time to do it themselves.”
After years in the corporate world and following his recent adventure, Power had this to say: “I find my joy on the ocean now, not in the office.”