Dreams shattered for a $20 part, some too slow to finish the challenge, others living life to the extreme and loving it , while a few are troubled by the mind game that is the Golden Globe. The challenges are building as the fleet moves out of the South Atlantic and contemplates the Southern Ocean on their doorstep.
Simon Curwen (UK) on Clara / Howdens was first to the Cape Town Photo Gate, which he crossed at on 6 November. The British sailors who had not been able to communicate with the rest of the fleet, possibly due to a faulty SSB radio installation, was happy to see people greeting him in Granger bay. During the live interview, he was surprised and delighted to learn he was still in first position.
Simon said: “Bill King and Loïck Fougeron did not make it past Cape Town in 1968, and five 2018 entrants, so I am very happy to be here and very impatient to go in the south. It has not been too hard so far, as we had manageable winds, but it is gonna be very different now. I am okay at sea, the only things I miss are people, my family, friends and the other entrants. The only contacts I have had were with passing ships which is rather limited.”
Simon went up the mast again for three hours and sorted his halyard issues, disentangling the mouse line and replacing the genoa halyard, but unlike other entrants he has not found any barnacles on his hull. He had several coats sprayed with Nautix A9000 self-polishing antifouling with copolymer, specially destined for long periods of use in heavy fouling areas.
“With the first test of the Atlantic, the issues faced by the fleet have mostly been two fold. Barnacle invasion for the majority and various issues with wind vanes. Simon has had none of those, and apart from a broken halyard faced no significant issues, which is a testament to his good preparation and the simplicity of his choices. I am surprised however he did not get a second halyard for foresails,” said Don McIntyre, founder and president of the Golden Globe Race.
Kirsten Neuschäfer (RSA) and Tapio Lehtinen (FIN) chose very different strategies in rounding the south Atlantic High, with Kirsten choosing the longer route and a very southern route to head to Cape Town the right way from the South. She has been covering more ground than Tapio but arrived five miles before the GGR 2018 veteran, after sailing an extra 420 miles since Les Sables d’Olonne.
Tapio Lehtinen, despite a thorough preparation with Jotun hard coating and ablative, has not been able to totally avoid the dreaded barnacles that cost him 100 extra days in his 2018 GGR but not at the same scale since he counted 60 in 2022 against 3000 in 2018.
Pat Lawless (IRL) – ” GREEN REBEL ” has decided to retire from the Golden Globe Race 2022, due to windvane issue.
