Sailing Magazine
by Richard Crockett
Not since the days of Bertie Reed, John Martin, JJ Provoyeur and Neal Petersen have we had anyone else charging around the globe singlehanded.
Today the Golden Globe Race starts in Les Sables d’Olonne where both Kirsten Neuschäfer (39) and Jeremy Bagshaw (59) are ready, prepared and up to the challenges ahead
Up front I must say how much admire them both as this is no easy race. It’s long and slow and will test the mettle of them to the absolute limit. I am looking forward to following them around the world and will bring news to readers of this Blog as and when interesting and pertinent news of them is available. Good luck Kirsten and Jeremy – may you have fair winds and following seas.
This is no “normal” race as it is based on the types of boats and equipment that were around when the very first Sunday Times Golden Globe set off in 1968, and which was won by Robin Knox-Johnston in a time of 312 days – a massive amount of time at sea alone and non-stop. That means sailing without modern technology or the benefit of satellite-based navigation aids.
Today, Like the original Sunday Times event, the 2022 Golden Globe Race is very simple: Depart from Les Sables-d’Olonne, France today (4 September 2022) and sail solo, non-stop around the world, via the five Great Capes and return to Les Sables-d’Olonne.
Competitors must sail in production boats between 32ft and 36ft overall (9.75 – 10.97m) designed prior to 1988 that have a full-length keel with rudder attached to their trailing edge. These yachts are heavily built, strong and sturdy, similar in concept to Sir Robin’s 32ft vessel ‘Suhaili’.
In contrast to the current professional world of elite ocean racing, this edition travels back to a time known as the ‘Golden Age’ of solo sailing.
Competitors will be navigating with sextant on paper charts, without electronic instruments or autopilots. They will hand-write their logs and determine the weather for themselves. Only occasionally will they talk to loved ones and the outside world when long-range high-frequency radios allow. It is now possible to race a monohull solo around the world in under 80 days, but sailors entered in this race will spend around 250 days at sea in little boats, challenging themselves and each other.
Kirsten Neuschäfer (39) is the only woman competing, and she is from Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha).
Kirsten has been sailing dinghies since her childhood, but sailing since 2006 as a profession. From sailing training to sailboat deliveries, she built a diverse set of skills and experience. Kirsten’s longest single-handing was a delivery from Portugal to South Africa with only a windvane as self-steering, on an old and maintenance-intensive 32-foot ferro-cement sloop. In 2015, she began working for Skip Novak on his Pelagic Expeditions to South Georgia, The Antarctic Peninsula, Patagonia and the Falklands.
Kirsten has sailed several film crews down to capture the beauty of the Antarctic. She was featured in National Geographic series ‘Wild Life Resurrection Island with Bertie Gregory’ as she sailed his crew throughout South Georgia to shed light on the beautiful ecosystems and hardships they’ve faced. She also sailed and was a support vessel for several crews from the newest BBC series ‘Seven Worlds, One Planet’ for footage of leopard seal predation against gentoo penguins and albatross behavior from Bird Island South Georgia.
Along with sailing, she also enjoys other solitary adventures. She cycled from Europe back home to South Africa (15000 km over approximately one year) on her own when she was just 22. She travelled throughout the Northwest and Central Africa into Southern Africa and eventually ending in Cape Agulhas. The trip brought trials and tribulations but was life-enriching in every sense, giving her the deepest appreciation of Africa and her people.
Her yacht, named ‘Minnehaha’ is Cape George Cutter (CG36) designed by Ed Monk & William Atkin.
Minnehaha is a fictional native woman from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1855 poem ‘The Song of Hiawatha’. She is the lover of the poem’s primary character, Hiawatha. The name Minnehaha is said to mean ‘laughing water’ in the poem. It more accurately translates to ‘waterfall’ in the Dakota Sioux language.
Jeremy Bagshaw (59) is from Simon’s Town, and is a well-known local yachtie.
He is a lifelong sailor who was introduced to the sport by his father at the tender age of 6. He graduated through various dinghies from Optimists to Lasers and Fireballs. After years of competitive dinghy sailing, his first introduction to offshore racing was as crew on a Lavranos designed Charger 33, an IOR racer, in the 1985 South Atlantic Race from Cape Town to Punta Del Este in Uruguay. He then sailed the return delivery to Cape Town in the autumn with a short-handed crew.
Later that year, he did my first delivery as skipper of a Farr 38 from the East Coast of South Africa to Mauritius and then skippered the race back from Mauritius to Durban. More recently he won the Governor’s Cup Race from Cape Town to St Helena twice, once as Skipper of an inexperienced crew of Saint Helenians and the second as co-skipper of a Farrier 31 trimaran (double-handed).
After selling his business in 2012 he decided to slow things down a bit and did some cruising with family throughout the Indian Ocean and subsequently did many deliveries throughout the Indian Ocean, South Atlantic, Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Patagonia. After spending three years helping two friends start and develop a rigging business, he withdrawn from the business to focus on his Golden Globe Race preparation.
“I suppose the competitive nature of sailing is an inspiration in itself, but it was the rawness and beauty of the Southern Ocean as partly experienced on a charter to Tierra del Fuego with Pelagic Expeditions in 2007 that has been the catalyst for this GGR venture” he said.
He purchased Are Wiig’s OE32 named ‘Olleanna’. Wiig started the race in 2018, but never finished. ‘Olleanna’ is an OE32 Masthead Cutter designed by Olle Enderlein.
All competitors have had to show prior ocean sailing experience of at least 8,000 miles and another 2000 miles solo, in any boat, as well as an additional 2000 miles solo in their GGR boat.
Some of the Race Rules
Any entrant making two stops is disqualified.
Each entrant will be required to have a standard Race Pack by the event organisers. The technology may change, but it will include, but not be limited to:
• A stand-alone satellite tracking system (the skippers cannot see) for web tracking updates.
• A two-way satellite short text paging unit. (to race headquarters only)
• Two handheld satellite phones for up to four short messages per day
• A sealed box with two portable GPS chart plotters (for emergency use only)
All Entrants will be tracked 24/7 by satellite, but competitors will not be able to interrogate this information unless an emergency arises and they break open their sealed safety box containing a GPS and satellite phone. Doing this, however, has consequences. By breaking the seal, competitors will be deemed to have retired from the Golden Globe Race, and instead will be relegated to the Chichester Class as if they had made a stop.
