“Sometimes in the tropics, if it’s nice and calm, I’ll drop sail and I’ll lash the helm over to one side,” recalled Kirsten Neuschäfer before the start of the Golden Globe Race. “I’ll jump overboard and have a swim around the boat, and sometimes I’ll swim away from the boat, just to get that feeling of vastness. That sense of eternity. That if the boat did sail away, it would be eternity. And it is a scary thought, but it’s also kind of intriguing.”
What does it take to compete in the longest race in the world, over eight months of isolation? Where the odds are firmly stacked against you. So skewed, in fact, that the risk is not of failure, but of literally having to abandon everything. Perhaps that is part of the appeal: this is a race that can take you to the edge, tempting you to touch the void, to peer into eternity.
Five years ago, the sailing world witnessed a grand experiment. Eighteen solo skippers set off on a recreation of the Golden Globe Race. Small long-keeled yachts, carrying only the most rudimentary technology, plunged into the southern ocean in a bid to race around the world in a homage to the 1968 pioneering event. But the attrition rate was devastating: four skippers had to abandon their boats - one seriously injured; five yachts were dismasted; 13 retired.
You might think potential entrants who witnessed how the 2018 fleet was ravaged by knockdowns, barnacles, even toxic mould, would be put off. But there is something about the Golden Globe Race, a ‘back to basics’ around the world race, that earns it a unique place in sailors’ psyches. It is sailing’s Everest climb. And so in 2022 another 16 (15 men, one woman) set off to do it all again. Among them was Kirsten Neuschäfer.
この記事は Yachting World の July 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は Yachting World の July 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
TAKING OWNERSHIP
WILL BRUTON ON UPSKILLING ON BOARD
SPECIAL REPORT
DAN HOUSTON ON CHANGES TO THE SHIPPING FORECAST
NAVIGATION BRIEFING
TOM CHENEY ON RACING ACROSS THE CHANNEL
NEW YACHTS
SOME EXCITING, AND VERY DIFFERENT, NEW 40-FOOTERS
21ST CENTURY TWINS
RM'S DISTINCTIVE NEW FLAGSHIP OFFERS AN ENTICING COMBINATION OF GOOD SAILING QUALITIES, SPACIOUS ACCOMMODATION AND TWIN KEELS AS STANDARD
UNLIKELY HERO
A CROSS-EUROPE ADVENTURE IN A 10FT DINGHY SEES SANDY MACKINNON NEARLY COME A CROPPER OFF WHITSTABLE’S MUD FLATS
HER OWN WAY
COLE BRAUER IS THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN TO SAIL SOLO NON-STOP AROUND THE WORLD. HELEN FRETTER FINDS OUT HOW SHE’S SHAKING THINGS UP
THE MIGHTY ESSEQUIBO
JAMES AND JAYNE PEARCE DISCOVER THEIRS IS THE ONLY YACHT IN THE COUNTRY CRUISING REMARKABLE GUYANA
CAPE NORTH
CRUISING BEYOND THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, JANNEKE KUYSTERS AND WIETZE VAN DER LAAN ENJOY A SURPRISING SUMMER IN NORWAY
DOWN WINDING
WHICH DOWNWIND SAILS ARE THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR YOU? AND HOW DO YOU TAKE THE STRESS OUT OF SAIL HANDLING ON A TRADEWIND PASSAGE? TOBY HODGES QUIZZED MORE THAN 240 SKIPPERS IN LAST YEAR'S ARC TO FIND OUT