April 28/2023: It has finally happened! A woman has won a solo round-the-world sailing race. Non-stop no less. South African Kirsten Neuschäfer, age 39, drifted across the Golden Globe finish line yesterday evening in Les Sables D’Olonne, France, after spending 253 days alone at sea, and so has planted an important flag in the annals...
Feb. 2/2023: I’ve been waiting since the 1990s, when I developed a crush of sorts on Isabelle Autissier, for a woman to win an around-the-world solo sailing race. A tantalizing prospect! This is the toughest, most extreme sport there is, but it is also that great rarity—a sport where women and men compete against each...
Nov. 28/2020: I was really hoping this was going to happen. That after coming second in the last Vendée Globe, and third in the one before that, that this time Alex Thomson on Hugo Boss would finally finish first and so become the first not-French person to win this singlehanded non-stop race around the world,...
This happened this morning at Les Sables D’Olonne. A really great achievement, to win a non-stop RTW race at age 73. HATS OFF to Jean-Luc!!! If you’ve been following you also know that Mark Slats, on The Ohpen Maverick, isn’t far behind. To avoid a huge winter gale blasting into the Bay of Biscay, Slats...
There’s certainly been no lack of drama in this year’s “remake” of the first non-stop round-the-world Golden Globe Race of 50 years ago. As one would expect the attrition rate has been high, with dismastings, rescues at sea, injuries, including one broken back, and very thankfully (so far) no fatalities. Of the 18 sailors who...
Sad news from the mountain fastness of Andorra: Edward Cecil Allcard, born October 31, 1914, died last week on Friday, July 28, at age 102, of complications related to a broken leg he suffered on July 3. He was the very last of what some have termed the “Ulysses generation” of bluewater sailors, which included...
So now, as the 50th anniversary of the Golden Globe Race of 1968-69 draws on nigh, the battle lines have been clearly drawn. We have on the one hand a highly organized tribute event: the previously discussed Golden Globe Race 2018, put together by ex-BOC racer Don McIntyre, with a fixed starting time and location...
What a nail-biter! Alex Thomson on Hugo Boss and Armel Le Cleac’h on Banque Populaire have been swapping places at the front of the Vendée Globe fleet for some time now and are deep in the Southern Ocean, not too far west of the longitude of Cape Leeuwin at the southwestern tip of Australia. Le...
Speaking of aluminum boats, some of you may be wondering whatever happened to Taonui, the 41-foot German-built full-keeled expedition vessel that Tony Gooch sailed on a solo non-stop circumnavigation back in 2002-03. It was an impressive voyage, the first-ever non-stop circuit via the great capes sailed from the west coast of North America (Victoria BC...
This, thank God, is a solo MOB tale with a totally happy ending. David Thompson, a retired engineer, was swept off his 49-foot ketch Enthalpy II (see photo up top) by a wave while sailing solo down the north coast of Puerto Rico this past Sunday. He was attached to the boat with a lifejacket/harness,...
