Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
She’s won the Golden Globe singlehanded round the world non-stop race has Kirsten Neuschäfer – and she thoroughly deserves the title of “Golden Girl”.
He final few miles were agonisingly slow as the wind dropped and she had to use all her abilities and concentration to eek every last little bit of boat speed from her trusty steed ‘Minnehaha’ to finish this epic circumnavigation.
She’s made of stern stuff so she made it all look too easy, although I am sure she would have preferred to look at the throng of support and media boats around her, and see if she could spot some familiar faces.
Her achievement is massive as she has set several records along the way, the one I missed sharing yesterday being that she has become the first woman to win the prestigious Golden Globe round-the-world race. In our male dominated sport that’s HUGE!
Her victory does need to be put into perspective, not to diminish her achievements, but simply to highlight how difficult her victory is.
The rules of the race are all written around how the 1968 race was sailed, and the technology available then. No GPS navigation, simply a sextant and tables. No modern satcoms were permitted so no long phone ship-to-shore phone calls home when in need of some encouragement. Plus, no modern music machines – just the old reel-to-reel tape recorders one had back in the day. Plus the race was non-stop with NO outside assistance permitted at all.
She also tackled this as a self-funded project with the entry fee alone being the equivalent of R150 000.00.
As the boats permitted were those in production at the time of the 1968 race, boat-speeds were in single figures, making her 235 day passage long, very slow and utterly alone.
She speaks 5 or 6 different languages, so will be an international hit on the world speaking circuit once she finds her land legs and settles down into life ashore.
Congrats again Kirsten. You have made your home nation exceptionally proud.
In closing I have to agree with my mate Frans Loots who told me yesterday that she’s “pure gold”. That she most certainly is.
