This from the New York Times via Dave Morris:
In 1969, or 2019, Sailing Round the World Alone Is Vexing
Jean-Luc Van Den Heede, 73, is one of only two sailors to have finished the solo, round-the-world Golden Globe Race this year.
By Chris Museler
Feb. 22, 2019
In 1968, nine sailors set out to compete in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, the first organized, solo, nonstop, round-the-world race. They were heading into the unknown, with no idea how their sailboats or their minds would cope with almost a year in isolation.
Some boats broke down, forcing them out of the race. Sailors crumbled under the emotional strain. One competitor, Donald Crowhurst, attempted to fake his circumnavigation, and then simply disappeared, abandoning his boat in the Atlantic.
Robin Knox-Johnston was the only finisher, returning on April 22, 1969, after 312 days at sea.
To mark the race’s 50th anniversary, another Golden Globe Race was planned. Organizers thought this one would be different, but the modern Golden Globe Race has proved to be no easier.
Last July, 17 36-foot sailboats departed from Les Sables-d’Olonne, France. Two sailors have made it back there for the finish. Only three remain racing; one is still months from the finish line. Others abandoned their boats 15,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean and are still coming to terms with their dramatic ocean rescues.
“We haven’t had as many finishers as we thought,” Don McIntyre, a founder of the race and a circumnavigator, said.
The Golden Globe Race was created to promote ocean sailing for the average sailor, in small boats with modest budgets. Competitors are not allowed to use electric autopilots and instead use wind vanes for self-steering as in the first Golden Globe. Only radio communication is allowed; sextants are used for navigation.
Van Den Heede, at 73, is the oldest person to complete a solo, nonstop, round-the-world sailboat race
Van Den Heede, at 73, is the oldest person to complete a solo, nonstop, round-the-world sailboat race.
Around 100 people have sailed solo, nonstop, round the world beneath the three great capes — the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, Cape Leeuwin in Australia and Cape Horn in Chile, the standard course for a solo circumnavigation. Many of these sailors have competed in the Vendée Globe, a solo round-the-world race started in 1989.
Unlike the high-speed, modern boats of the Vendée, which can outrun storms by sailing at speeds of 30 knots, the small, full-keeled Golden Globe boats are regularly overrun by depressions, especially in the Southern Ocean.
McIntyre said the 36-foot sailboats use modern masts designed to handle the impact of heavy ocean waves. Yet several boats in the race have been rolled or dismasted, most in the Indian Ocean.
Advertisement
Abhilash Tomy, an Indian Navy pilot, severely injured his back when his boat was rolled and dismasted halfway between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, one of the most remote places on the planet. Another competitor was dismasted in the same storm, which had 70-knot winds and 45-foot waves.
Susie Goodall was rescued in early December after her boat went end over end and dismasted 2,000 miles west of Cape Horn. With her boat flooded and no engine or electronics, she called for rescue and was lifted off her foundering boat by the crane of a passing cargo ship.
Goodall has yet to talk publicly about her experience.
“Susie was in a desperate situation,” said McIntyre, who spoke with all the stricken sailors throughout the race to coordinate rescues. “She put her whole life into this. Then she’s picked up by the hook of a crane, and everything leaves instantly.”
McIntyre said he had spoken to Tomy about his accident and rescue, but “there were boundaries — it was too early.”
In December, Susie Goodall was rescued in the Southern Ocean after her boat flooded. Goodall, 29, was the youngest competitor in the race and the only woman.
Mark Slats, one of the two sailors who has finished, said that the storms seemed to have no end and that the competitors looked to one another for support, a luxury Knox-Johnston did not have in the first Golden Globe.
“There was a real human aspect to the race,” said Slats, who tried to help advise Gregor McGuckin over the radio on handling his boat in large waves during a storm before McGuckin was dismasted days later. “We were really pulling ourselves through this together over the radio.”
McIntyre said many of the sailors were not mentally prepared for the isolation of the race.
“These sailors are coming from a different world than in 1969,” he said. “We are so used to being connected. This knocked some people out. It’s an amazing race, and if you’re not there for the right reasons, your mind will find a way to retire from the race.”
Those involved also said global weather patterns are producing stronger storms.
“I don’t want to hide behind bad luck, but the reality appears to be true, that the conditions in the Southern Ocean are changing and the weather is stronger,” McIntyre said.
Knox-Johnston, who now runs the Clipper Race, a round-the-world sailing race with stops for amateurs, said the effects of climate change could limit these types of races.
“We know with the heating of water, the atmosphere becomes less stable and there are more storms,” he said. “If we want people to cross oceans, we have to study this. Will things eventually be too unsafe weatherwise?”
Jean-Luc Van Den Heede of France, who has competed in several round-the-world races, won the Golden Globe trophy on Jan. 29, finishing in 211 days 23 hours 12 minutes. At 73, he is the oldest person to complete the course solo and nonstop, taking the mantle from Knox-Johnston, who was 67 when he completed the Velux 5 Oceans Race in 2007.
Seventeen boats left Les Sables-d’Olonne, France, at the start of the Golden Globe Race. Two sailors have finished, and only three others remain racing.
“Your mind is never the same after this,” Van Den Heede said in an interview the day he finished the race. “You learn to be an optimist, to take life as it arrives. Alone you have plenty of time to think, to look at your life. You don’t have time in the current life with pressures and meetings. Here you’re your own master.”
Slats, a 42-year-old Dutchman, finished three days behind Van Den Heede. He moved into second in the extreme cold of the Southern Ocean and came within 50 miles of Van Den Heede at one point in the North Atlantic.
“Sometimes I would drop a sail and have to go inside to boil water and warm my hands before rehoisting the new sail,” he said.
Despite the accidents, Knox-Johnston said, lessons learned from the race will benefit sailors.
“I’m talking to all the contestants as to why they were dismasted,” he said. “We’ve learned enough to make it safe for you to sail across an ocean. This will open up so many horizons. It’s got to be right. It’s good for our sport.”
Uku Randmaa and Istvan Kopar are expected to complete the race in mid-March. Tapio Lehtinen, who passed Buenos Aires in the past week, should finish in late June. All but Lehtinen, hindered by massive goose barnacle growth on his boat’s bottom, are expected to beat Knox-Johnston’s time of 312 days.
The Golden Globe Race is now planned for every four years. Though some of the boats in this edition were identical, the 2022 race will feature an open class and a class for replicas of “Joshua,” the bright red boat Bernard Moitessier sailed in the first Golden Globe. The Frenchman, after circumnavigating the world once, decided not to finish the race and kept going, landing in Tahiti.
Despite their accidents at sea, McGuckin and Tomy are still planning to compete in the 2022 race. McIntyre said there would be a maximum of 20 boats allowed, and 12 entries are confirmed for the next race.
Even Goodall said she was interested in racing again.
“Some people just live for adventure; it’s human nature,” she said in a statement after she was rescued. “And for me, the sea is where my adventure lies.”
