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Around the world Single-handed Non-stop By the three great capes With a unique format Budget friendly Environmentally conscious Starts in A Coruña from August 2023

Around the world Single-handed Non-stop By the three great capes With a unique format Budget friendly Environmentally conscious In A Coruña from August 2023

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Andrea Mura and Cole Brauer had never met. Andrea had arrived in A Coruna after Cole had already left on her earlier start. Yet, watching them talk for the first time today they looked like old friends overdo for a good chat and catch up, such is the bond you form when you share such an adventure and challenge, you know every other participant will know exactly what you mean each time you speak and the camaraderie that develops is incredible. It was so nice to see Andrea and Cole chatting away talking about their adventures.

Andrea Mura arrived in A Coruna in gentle southwesterly winds crossing the finish line at 2:44 pm local time (13:44 UTC) after 120 days and 44 minutes since his departure on November 18th. He achieved his held dream and, as he put it, this circumnavigation gave him back as much as he had to give to achieve it and feels he is totally at peace with himself now, happy to be back and happy to see family and friends. It was another long day and we’ll follow this up with a longer article as usual, for the time being we just wish to congratulate Andrea on his enormous achievement. Cole Brauer handed him the trophy and it was another emotional day for the skippers of the Global Solo Challenge.

LIVE FEED STARTS 1:30 pm Local time (Italy/Spain/France), 7:30 am EST US time (Approx) INSTAGRAM LIVE: https://www.instagram.com/globalsolochallenge/ FACEBOOK LIVE: https://www.facebook.com/globalsolochallenge/

Andrea will dock on the long 30m central pontoon just by the iconic Tower of A Coruna. The best place to watch him arrive (1) is the end of the breakwater until he crosses the finish line, after that you can make your way to the pontoons (2) and once celebrations on the dock have finished we will move to the Global Solo Challenge white tent in the space ashore (3) where beers will be offered to those attending.

Andrea Mura has sailed very fast all night and the wind is holding up, he is currently 25 miles from the finish sailing at over 10 knots. We expect to go out when he is about 10 miles to the finish at around 12:30 local time. The live stream will start soon after probably around 1pm local time or soon after. LIVE FEED STARTS 1pm Local time (Italy/Spain/France), 7am EST US time INSTAGRAM LIVE: https://www.instagram.com/globalsolochallenge/ FACEBOOK LIVE: https://www.facebook.com/globalsolochallenge/

Andrea Mura is less than 200 miles from achieving his lifelong dream after crossing the finish line in A Coruna. He has managed to keep a good pace and he is currently expected after midday local time tomorrow Sunday 17th, the exact timing will very much depend on the final approach and the possibility that the wind will decrease substantially for the last 20-30 miles. All in all an early afternoon arrival seems plausible. ETA SPAIN/ITALY : 13:00 – 17:00 ETA USA EST : 07:00 – 11:00 am

The Azores high has spread far and wide in the north Atlantic and is posing more than a headache to Italian skipper Riccardo Tosetto who has little option other than to keep sailing north and reach the latitude where he can find the favourable winds of a depression moving eastward. For the time being Francois Gouin should be able to gain back some of the miles lost in the Doldrums and we have to see how the situation evolves and whether any of the two skippers will be able to make relative gains. Francois is still limited to sailing with three reefs in the mainsail.

Many of you asked in messages if everything was ok with Louis Robein. Louis is absolutely fine but he was dealing with issues with his autopilot that forced him to work in the back of the boat in a difficult to access area which required taking apart some of the surrounding interior fittings. He worked on the autopilot for a total of two days with a sails configuration that kept the boat drifting approximately on course. The repair was completed successfully and now Louis is back on course towards Cape Horn, just over 1300 miles southeast of his position. We look forward to seeing Louis round the Cape and sail in less isolated waters.

News Articles

Andrea Mura expected in A Coruna Sunday 17th afternoon

Andrea Mura – Vento di Sardegna @globalsolochallenge   With under 500 miles to go Andrea Mura must really be starting to feel the end of his epic adventure is near.

Andrea Mura to join Italian circumnavigators elite, with a smile

Andrea Mura – Vento di Sardegna @globalsolochallenge   After the emotional arrivals of Philippe Delamare and Cole Brauer in A Coruna, 5 competitors are still at sea in the Global

An insight into Cole Brauer’s future after the Global Solo Challenge

Cole Brauer – First Light @YACHT/M.Strauch   Where to begin to tell you about the fantastic, emotional, monumental day that it was yesterday as we witness Cole Brauer make history

The harsh reality of the Challenge: more than half the starters have retired

Ronnie Simpson – Shipyard Brewing @Ronnie Simpson   Excitement mounts in A Coruna for the imminent arrival of Cole Brauer. The young talented American sailor is getting plenty of attention

Skippers' Blogs

The weather is cooling down

The weather is cooling down, it’s only 10° in the boat. I put on an extra layer and I think it’s boot change tomorrow. Yesterday

The crossing at point Nemo was celebrated today and for me it’s with Pinot Gris GRAND CRU KESSLER 2018. And now, on the way to

The hydrogenerator is charging!

Day 9 – Woke up at 6am because the wind is changing and we have to tack. Breakfast, weather check. 9am, continuation of works for

I steer 8 to 10 hours a day to save diesel

It all started with 60 hours of 30 knot winds and a few gusts. Since I can’t do any DIY, I charge my batteries with

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Latest News: €213 Million Golden Globe Race 2022 Media Value

days hrs mins secs

"I think this Golden Globe Race is a wonderful idea. Why dream of it and never do it. This is a challenge that has been created to achieve that dream." Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Race Patron

The 58th Anniversary edition of the first Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968/69

The 2026 Golden Globe Race

21 sailors… 30,000 miles… non-stop… alone… no outside assistance, like the original sunday times event, the 2026 golden globe race is very simple: depart from les sables-d’olonne, france on september 6th, 2026 and sail solo, non-stop around the world, via the five great capes and return to les sables-d’olonne..

Entrants are limited to sailing similar yachts and equipment to what was available to Sir Robin in that first race. That means sailing without modern technology or the benefit of satellite-based navigation aids.

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.

Suhaili was a slow, sturdy 32ft double-ended ketch based on a William Atkins ERIC design. She was heavily built of teak and carried no computers, GPS, satellite phone or water-maker, and Robin completed the challenge with no outside assistance or aid of modern-day shore-based weather routing advice. He had only a wind-up chronometer and a barograph to face the world alone and caught rainwater to survive.

But he was at one with the ocean, able to contemplate and absorb all that this epic voyage had to offer.

Bringing back the Golden Globe Race and thus the ‘Golden Age’ of solo sailing is to celebrate the original event, the winner, his boat and that significant world-first achievement.

Once again competitors in this 2026 race will be sailing simple boats using basic equipment to guarantee a satisfying and personal experience. The challenge is pure and very raw, placing adventure ahead of winning at all costs.

It is for ‘those who dare’, just as it was for Sir Robin.

They 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.

The 2026 Golden Globe Race will be another fitting tribute to the first edition.

Don McIntyre, Race Founder and Chairman – about the 2026 Golden Globe Race:

I was first exposed to the inaugural 1982 BOC Challenge Around Alone Race during the Sydney stopover, working on Aries wind vanes used by competitors. I spent time with them all. We laughed together and I heard their stories. I met my boyhood champion, Robin Knox-Johnston and was hooked. I decided to compete in the 1986 event, but with a part built boat, I ran out of time, so had to be content in the role of Sydney BOC Race Chairman that year. Competing in the 1990-91 BOC Challenge was one of the highlights in my life. On reflection, I always considered myself lucky as, in my opinion, it was the last of the ‘adventure events’. Each future race became increasingly performance orientated, sailed by elite sportsmen and women in ever more extreme yachts, focused on winning at all costs. Nothing wrong with that, in fact it was and still is incredibly exciting, but it was simply a lot more of an adventure in 1990. My dream to sail solo around the world was borne of inspiration gained while following the solo voyages of Francis Chichester, Robin Knox-Johnston and Bernard Moitessier, and reading about Chay Blyth, Blondie Hasler and others from the ‘Golden Age’ of solo sailing. That was an exciting period! In 2008, I saw Sir Robin Knox-Johnston speaking on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his record setting 1968 non-stop circumnavigation. Referring to the current space-age building materials, high tech satellite systems and computers supporting today’s solo sailors, he simply said (by comparison to his own expe­rience back then) ‘This takes the spice out of it!’. Well, just like the 2018 and 2022 editions, the 2026 Golden Globe Race very definitely puts the spice back into it and, by world standards, offers a very unique and demanding challenge to any sailor who’s up for it. That same year, Robin was asked: ‘What would you say to sailors thinking of circumnavigating?’ His response: ‘My advice to them would be quite simply this. If you’ve got the idea, and you want to do it, then do it. Don’t let ANYTHING get in the way. Far too many people sit in yacht clubs talking about it but then never do it. DO IT! You’ll never regret it.’ He’s right of course. Over the years I have personally supported many young solo sailors, men and women, to achieve their dreams. I hope this event will let many more – and maybe you! – achieve theirs! The 2018 and 2022 races were incredibly exciting and the 2026 GGR edition once again will venture into the unknown – watch this space!

Aims & Objectives

• To create a unique ‘RETRO’ non-stop solo around the world yacht race, in the image of the original Sunday Times Golden Globe that draws sailors back to the Golden Age of ‘one sailor, one boat’ facing the great oceans of the world.
• To organise a race where the adventure takes precedence over winning at all costs.
• To professionally manage an event where the sailor’s skill and traditional seamanship alone, rather than modern technology or support crews, gets them home and where the achievement truly belongs to the skipper.
• To give sailors of all ages an opportunity to race solo around the world safely, in a fleet of similar and affordable yachts in the spirit of Suhaili.

All historic video footage and photos of the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race are the exclusive copyright of PPL PHOTO AGENCY and may not be reproduced in any format for any purpose under any condition and may not be retransmitted at any time without the written permission of the rights holder. For video or image licensing, please email:  [email protected]  or visit  www.pplmedia.com .

The Race in Numbers

"When I first heard about the 2018 GGR I thought it was a great idea, why not do it, reach out to people who have the ambition to do something special with their lives." Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Patron of the Golden Globe Race

That was the time Sir Robin Knox-Johnston took to complete the first solo non-stop circumnavigation. The winning yacht in this race can be expected to complete the same distance in 260 days.

The number of individuals to have sailed solo around Cape Horn and other Great Capes in the Southern Ocean. This compares to almost 700 astronauts who have been shot into space!

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Dark waters: how the adventure of a lifetime turned to tragedy

The Clipper round the world yacht race was created for amateurs seeking the ultimate challenge. But did they underestimate the risks?

O n 18 November 2017, Simon Speirs, 60, a retired lawyer from Bristol, was hauling on his waterproofs below deck on a yacht in rough seas in the Southern Ocean. For nearly three months, he’d endured cold, cramped quarters, soaked clothing, sea sickness and very little sleep. As one of the crews competing in the Clipper Round the World yacht race, Speirs had completed more than 13,000 nautical miles since leaving Britain, but the wild remoteness of the Southern Ocean was more challenging than anything he had experienced before.

Speirs had a hacking cough and a heavy cold, but as leader of the watch he had to get out on deck. The race had so far taken them across the northern Atlantic Ocean to Uruguay and back across the southern Atlantic to South Africa. Two months in, he’d asked for a break. But after only a week his replacement had fallen out of his bunk and hurt his wrist, and Speirs had to resume his role.

By 2pm, the wind was getting stronger; the yacht lurched up and down waves the size of steep hills. The captain ordered the crew to change the headsail to make the boat easier to control. Speirs made his way to the foredeck, but, at that moment, a massive wave hit, sweeping him over the side.

Speirs was still attached to the boat with a tether. For several minutes he was dragged behind the boat in the roiling waves, while the crew tried to haul him back in. Then the clip on his harness snapped, and he lost contact with the yacht. It took three attempts and 32 minutes to pull him back on board, by which time he was dead.

Simon Speirs is exactly the sort of person Robin Knox-Johnston, the veteran sailor, had in mind when he founded the Clipper Round the World yacht race more than 25 years ago. At that time, the only people who got to race boats around the world were professional sailors. Clipper was designed for ordinary people: offering training and the opportunity to join a mixed-ability crew, it would enable customers to achieve the ambition of a lifetime.

The race is held every two years. Eleven yachts, each with a paying crew of 16-22 amateurs, led by a professional skipper and a qualified first mate, start from an English port, and take up to 11 months to cover 40,000 nautical miles. Paying crew can choose to do one or more legs of the journey, and it isn’t cheap. To take part in the whole race, over seven or eight legs, costs around £50,000. The route takes in some of the world’s most treacherous seas, but you don’t need any sailing experience to participate. According to Clipper Ventures, the company that runs the race, around 40% of participants are complete novices. Since it began, the race has become hugely popular.

Clipper Ventures is not the first outfit to sell an iconic and dangerous challenge to amateurs. On 23 May 2019, 354 climbers made it to the top of Mount Everest in a single day . This included a dentist, an architect, a surgeon, a CEO and a housewife, who had each paid between £33,000 and £100,000. The oldest was 64. The commercialisation of extreme adventure has been made possible by advances in technical equipment like satnav and portable oxygen metres, and turbocharged by a hunger for personal growth and fulfilment. But it has also been accompanied by accidents and tragedies. May 2019 was one of the deadliest seasons on record: 11 climbers died on Everest in nine days . According to reports, overcrowding and underprepared climbers were partly to blame.

There have been other fatal accidents on the Clipper race, too. On 4 September 2015, Andrew Ashman , 49, a paramedic from Orpington, south-east London, was standing in a known danger zone in the yacht’s cockpit area when he was struck by the boom and suffered a fatal neck injury. Six months later, on the same boat, Sarah Young , 40, an entrepreneur from London with no previous sailing experience, died after being swept overboard by a wave. She was not clipped on.

According to a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) into Speirs’s death, published in June 2019, 17 people fell overboard from Clipper yachts between 2013 and 2018. Just over two weeks before Speirs went overboard, a Clipper yacht ran aground and had to be abandoned in a “very serious” incident just off the coast of South Africa. An MAIB investigation into that incident published in June 2018 concluded that the inexperience of the crew was a factor: “With only one professional, employed seafarer on board, the Clipper yachts were not safely manned for the round the world race.”

“If you read Clipper’s material, you’d think their number one concern was to keep people safe, but they have failed in so many ways,” said Margaret Speirs, Simon’s widow, when we first met in 2020. “I believe the company is compromised by their desire to make money out of these races.”

Knox-Johnston has strongly denied such claims. “Safety is a core principle of the Clipper Race, ahead of the racing element of the event itself, and therefore the most important part of the training of its crew,” Clipper Ventures said in a statement to the Guardian. The company says it has made investments in safety gear, becoming “the first ocean-racing company to introduce personal AIS beacons into its lifejackets to aid recovery of a man overboard”.

After the deaths of Ashman and Young in the 2015-16 race, the future of Clipper looked uncertain, a source who works at Clipper Ventures told me. “I thought, nobody is going to want to sign up.” But, in fact, applications increased. People are drawn by the chance to do something exceptional – and the risk is part of the attraction. Many customers, the source said, tend to think: “This is really dangerous! This is something I’ve got to do!”

T he founder of Clipper Ventures, Knox-Johnston, became the first person to sail solo around the world , without stopping, in 1969. In the memoir he published soon after his return, he describes the hardships he endured. His boat leaks, his water supply gets polluted, his steering gear is smashed, he shoots a shark when it comes too close, and suffers what was later diagnosed as a burst appendix. He carries on, undaunted. This, it seems, is the Knox-Johnston way. At the age of 68, he became the oldest person to race solo around the world. He had got irritated with people saying he was past it.

In the autumn of 1995, the same year he received a knighthood, Knox-Johnston placed newspaper ads to see how many people would be willing to pay to become part of a round-the-world crew. The response suggested that there may be a viable business in the idea. William Ward, a former property developer, who became CEO of Clipper Ventures, invested £1.8m.

Knox-Johnston commissioned eight new boats – Bluewater 58 sloops – from Colvic, a shipyard near Chelmsford, Essex. The company set up a base in Plymouth, Devon, and Knox-Johnston recruited friends from the sailing world, many ex-servicemen, as skippers. As soon as the boats were completed, they began training crew, taking on additional skippers as they went.

On 16 October 1996, the first race left Plymouth with the eight boats. The race was a success, and over the next few years Clipper built itself into an international brand. Major companies started to sponsor the boats (Garmin, Nasdaq), as did charities such as Unicef, and, from 2002, British cities such as Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow. “Since the first race in 1996, the event has been transformed from a low-key amateur sailing race into a major, and highly profitable, international event attracting the interest of the world’s media and business leaders,” wrote Ward in Clipper company accounts in 2007. In the following years, the company continued to grow.

After the 2011-12 race, the company upgraded its yachts, and launched the new Clipper 70s, manufactured in China. They were longer and faster than the previous yachts, reflecting Clipper’s ambitions for more exciting racing. In 2018, Clipper expanded its business to Asia with the launch of a China-based division, Clipper China. In 2019, the company made a profit of £3.2m; by 2020 it had a staff of 86.

The man at the heart of this success, Knox-Johnston, is, in the words of the Daily Mail , “a patriotic Englishman of the old school”, who “embodies the spirit of the stiff upper lip”. He has little time for what he sees as unnecessary bureaucracy. In his autobiography, he criticised the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), the government department that enforces safety at sea and sets standards for the Clipper race. Knox-Johnston complained about its ridiculous and “inappropriate” rules for small racing yachts.

Knox-Johnston sees the race as a life-changing opportunity. Ben Bowley, a skipper and chief instructor, who worked for Clipper Ventures for nine years from 2011, was impressed by Knox-Johnston’s vision and belief. “He has drive, passion and his ability to convey the awesomeness [of the race] is quite captivating.” Having completed the race, Knox-Johnston wrote in his autobiography, people “usually feel confident to take on greater challenges”. He continued: “They have painted their lives with bright colours, not pastel shades, and that brightness is like a drug and they want more of it.”

T he moment Simon Speirs decided he was going to sail around the world came in 1992, when he was in his mid-30s. Watching the first TV footage of the Whitbread Round the World race, he was entranced by the huge seas of the Southern Ocean. “It then became more a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’,” he later wrote on his blog. Ocean sailing was his wife’s idea of misery, but she understood his obsession. “Simon was excited about it. It was his retirement dream to do it before he was too old, too infirm,” she said.

Speirs, a senior partner in a Bristol legal firm, was meticulous and thorough. He liked to-do lists and DIY, and had a dry sense of humour. He also had an adventurous side. Every two years he would take on a challenge to raise money for charity: he had climbed the Three Peaks (the highest mountains of Scotland, England and Wales), cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats, run a 66-mile race in the Lake District.

Speirs originally signed up for the 2015-16 race. But he deferred his place because work was busy and his oldest son was getting married. Better to wait until the next race, 2017-18, when he would be 60 and newly retired. He kept fit by cycling six miles a day to work.

Speirs was a keen amateur sailor. He kept a couple of dinghies on a reservoir in Chew Valley, Somerset, where he had “sailing Sundays” with his children. He had a son and a daughter with his first wife, who died in 1991, and two sons with Margaret, whom he married in 1996. He had skippered chartered yachts on family holidays in the Mediterranean. “But that in no way compares with the experience of these huge racing yachts in these wild oceans,” said Margaret.

Training for the Clipper race consists of four courses, levels 1-4, each lasting a week. This process, which is compulsory for participants, covers basic sailing techniques – headsail changes, tacking, gybing, helming; as well as race strategy and safety. Trainee crew also sail offshore, mostly in the Solent, and later spend a few nights in the Channel. “The Solent and the Channel are widely recognised as one of the best sailing grounds in the world for training,” said a spokesperson for Clipper Ventures, because “of the complexity of tides, shipping, navigational hazards and inclement weather”.

The people who sign up for the Clipper race tend to be middle-aged men of means. Many are at a turning point in their lives: just divorced, promoted, retired, bereaved, recovering from illness. Nathan Harrow, then 43, a business consultant, decided to sign up as a round-the-worlder in the 2017-18 race after a period of stress and depression after redundancy. “Clipper was me drawing a line under the old me and getting my confidence back,” he told me.

Mary Morrison, a mentor for troubled children, from south-west London, was 65 and perfectly content with her life, when she did the 2015-16 race. “One of the guys I was sailing with said, ‘You’re the one least after change, but you’ll probably change the most’, and that was probably true,” she says. She gained new friends, an appreciation of the scale and sheer beauty of our planet, and a sense of how we need to look after it more. “And it gave me a lot of confidence,” she said. Another woman in her 60s, who did the third leg of the 2017-18 race, told me it was the best thing she had ever done.

Crew are assigned to each yacht a few weeks before the race. The aim is to balance experience and ability across the fleet. Whether everyone gets on is a matter of pure chance. “It’s one big social experiment,” said a crew member who did the race in 2007-8 and again in 2017-18. “If you’re lucky, you have a good time. It’s partly to do with the characters involved.”

Each boat is certified for 24 people including one skipper, who in 2017 was paid about £38,000 a year, plus £150 a day for six months of training beforehand. (“We ensure that our skippers share Clipper Ventures’ ethos of safety above all else,” said Clipper Ventures. “Anyone who fails safety standards is dismissed.”)

For many years, Clipper were required to have two professional sailors on board during the race, under the MCA’s small commercial vessel code. However, a freedom of information request shows that in 2010, Knox-Johnston lobbied the MCA to allow him to replace the second qualified person with a trained-up member of the fee-paying crew. The MCA refused. In 2012, with the MCA under new leadership, Knox-Johnston tried again. “We have tried to make the system of having two qualified people aboard each boat work,” he said in a meeting with the MCA on 1 August, but, he said, it is “not financially sustainable”.

Knox-Johnston had a subsequent meeting with the MCA at Clipper’s base in Gosport, Hampshire, at the end of September. Details of the meeting were not released. A year later, in October 2013, the MCA granted Knox-Johnston’s wish. From that point on, it wouldn’t be necessary to have two professionals on board. All that was required was one fully qualified skipper, and a second person who had successfully completed the company’s coxswain training course.

The Clipper coxswain’s course lasts 12 days, and is paid for by Clipper. The company aims to have two people on each boat who have taken the course, which covers use of radar, reading wind direction and force from a chart, calculating tidal flow and ocean currents, and manoeuvring the yacht safely into a berth in a port or harbour. Some sources I spoke to were sceptical about whether this training is really a match for hands-on experience. “As a professional sailor you’re trained to look and see things that are going wrong ahead of catastrophe,” said one skipper. “You’ve got to have this ability to stand back and look at the whole picture, all the time.”

After the deaths of Ashman and Young in the 2015-16 race, the MAIB urged Clipper to review its manning policy. “The special nature of the Clipper Round the World yacht race places a huge responsibility on one person to ensure the safety of the yacht and its crew at all times,” the MAIB wrote in April 2017.

Four months later, the 2017-18 race started without a second paid professional on board any of the boats.

T he race was not quite what Speirs had imagined. Seven weeks in, he described the trip on his blog as “acute discomfort mingled with elation and awe”. High points included the “beauty of the sky at night”, the “soft swish” of the boat through calm sea, the camaraderie of the crew and an encounter with a pod of dolphins. Less enjoyable was the sea sickness, the cold and the lack of sleep. Speirs had dropped two trouser sizes since the start of the race, a fact he attributed to the physical effort of sailing. Pulling ropes. Grinding winches. “I miss you very much,” he wrote in a letter to Margaret, on 10 October. The experience, he said, was “not a barrel of laughs”. But he still planned to complete all eight stages. “I am too stubborn to drop out,” he wrote on his blog.

Not all of his fellow crew members were so reluctant to quit. Mark Tucker, then 40, had signed up to do the whole Clipper 2017-18 race and was assigned to Great Britain, the same boat as Speirs. (The boat was sponsored by the British government, as part of a marketing campaign to attract tourism and investment; on 2 August, the crew were photographed outside 10 Downing Street .) However, Tucker left after the first leg because of his concerns about safety. He felt that there was insufficient time before the start of the race for maintenance and repairs to the boat. At the time, he wrote a resignation letter to skipper Andy Burns, explaining his thinking, but he wasn’t able to speak candidly in public because he’d signed an NDA. “In retrospect,” Tucker told me, “I view them very much as a media/PR company that happens to do a bit of sailing, rather than the other way around.”

By the end of the second leg, Speirs was exhausted. At the end of the 10-day stopover in Cape Town, South Africa, he wrote on his blog that he had used the layover to “repair and recharge”. He went to bed early and ate healthily. He got his haircut and met up with his daughter, Katherine, and her husband. She gave him a fruit cake baked by her mother-in-law.

On 31 October 2017, the Clipper boats began the third leg of the race: Cape Town to Fremantle, Australia. A journey of more than 4,700 nautical miles, it would take about 23 days and pass through the Southern Ocean, one of the world’s most dangerous waters. An area of almost constant high wind and frequent gales, it is where one of the highest ever waves was recorded – 120 feet.

For this third leg, the crew had dropped from 20 at the start of the race to 16. The average age was 50, but the overall sailing experience was greater than on the previous two legs. Tim Jeffery, then 56, an architect from London who had sailed small boats for 15 years, had signed up for the first leg “to get to know people”, and the third leg for the Southern Ocean. “It is the most remote place in the world,” he told me. “The sea is dramatic. It’s challenging because of the size of the waves. You also get very fast sailing and it’s hard work.”

The crew was divided into two groups operating a system of five watches a day: two shifts of six hours from 8am; three shifts of four hours from 8pm. Everyone was given a job: engineer, medic, treasurer. As well as head of his watch, Speirs was the nominated sail repairer. He became known as “Tailor of Gloucester” on account of the hours he spent at the sewing machine with glasses perched on the end of his nose.

Speirs was also the Clipper coxswain, regarded as the skipper’s second in command. Great Britain had actually started the race with three paying crew members who had completed the Clipper coxwain’s course: one was Tucker; the other, apart from Speirs, was Jon Milne, then 50, an IT director, who was injured at the time of Speirs’s accident. A common theme of Speirs’s blog was that he felt overworked.

Everyone on Great Britain was delighted with their captain, Andy Burns. Then 31, Burns had started sailing as a schoolboy in Lincolnshire. After working on superyachts and for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, he joined Clipper Ventures as an instructor in 2015. This was his first race as skipper.

Speirs regarded Burns as an ally. Both were good with people, patient, enthusiastic. Burns prioritised safety over speed. He “assessed the abilities and limitations of his crew to the extent that, during leg two, he made the decision not to race competitively, but to sail conservatively”, according to the June 2019 MAIB report.

Once the boat was sailing through the Southern Ocean in extremely cold weather, the shortage of experienced hands became a problem. Speirs wasn’t able to rest as there was no one to take his place. “The boats are set up for a certain number of crew,” according to a source at Clipper Ventures. “You need that many people to be able to work the boat. If you’re one or two people down that’s very problematic, and of course it makes the rest of the crew tired.”

After the 2014-15 race, a fitness test became part of the interview. Crew have to show they can climb on to a top bunk (not so easy when the boat is listing at 45 degrees) and get on the boat without using a ladder. The source said they felt Clipper Ventures’ vetting process needed to be tougher. Being at sea can be petrifying. “People become frozen with fear and start behaving out of character and become very difficult because they’re frightened.”

One person, who did not want to give his name, signed up for leg three on Great Britain in the 2017-18 race. In the final week of training, the boats raced down to France and back. “The weather was hideous. We had 18 people on board and there was probably only four or five of us that managed to keep the boat sailing. The rest were incapacitated downstairs. I was burning myself out covering for other people. When we pulled up into the dock, I packed my bags and I said, I’m done, it’s not safe.”

The dropout rate among round-the-worlders is 40%, wrote Speirs on his blog. Things must get very bad, because crew are liable for 100% of the fees if they drop out during the race. “People remortgage homes and invest significant amounts of money in the adventure,” said one former crew member. “Sometimes as much as £100k if you include insurance, food, accommodation, flights, kit etc. It’s going to take something pretty serious to knock them off course.”

A part from injuries and fatigue among the crew of Great Britain, a major concern was the condition of the boat. In an email to Clipper’s management on 3 July 2017, six weeks before the start of the race, Speirs had pointed out that Great Britain was leaking. “Still working hard to keep water out. Not easy job and pretty hairy when boat kicking around. This should have been sorted out at refit before handover. It’s a safety issue,” Speirs wrote in his blog on 12 August.

The boat was still leaking when it left Liverpool on 20 August 2017. Within two days the generator packed up. The water maker, which turns salt water into drinking water, didn’t work for three weeks. “Andy [Burns, the captain] was spending his entire time dealing with maintenance issues on a boat that was three weeks into a year-long circumnavigation,” said Mark Tucker. “If he’s down below sorting out why the water maker doesn’t work or the generator doesn’t work, he’s not on deck coaching people, making sure the boat’s being sailed safely.”

As part of its investigation, MAIB singled out an issue with the guardrail and supporting stanchions, which may have been partly responsible for Speirs’s death. The guardrail, which was designed to keep crew from falling overboard, was damaged in rough seas on 4 November, 13 days before Speirs’s accident. The crew managed to lash up the guardrail by wrapping rope around it. “The repair was not great,” said Tim Jeffery. “We had to be extra careful on the foredeck after that.”

The MAIB report identified a series of problems with Great Britain. “The cumulative effect of the defects was to increase workload for the crew, contributing to their fatigue, lowering morale, and distracting from sailing and gaining sailing experience,” it stated.

There were problems on other boats. Unicef had to be bailed out every four hours, on legs one and two, according to one round-the-world sailor. Unicef started the race with a broken fuel pump. The generator failed on the first leg. Two crew members who had signed up to do the whole race left Unicef after leg two, saying they were unhappy with the number of problems with the boat that needed attention.

Staff at Clipper put the malfunctions down to normal wear and tear. The boats had been around the world twice at that point, they say, as well as being used in training and for corporate events. “Some people believe that because they are paying to go around the world, the boat should be like hiring a car,” said Lance Shepherd, skipper on Liverpool during the 2017-18 race. “Everything should be immaculate, ready to go. But that is not how boats work. They are much more fickle and difficult to maintain.” Clipper’s management was prudent, he said. “They put safety first and foremost.” The boats “get stripped right back and overhauled” at the end of every race.

But there were also problems with the Clipper 70s from the outset. Clipper Ventures first discovered an issue in 2013, when the new hulls were shipped to the UK from China. There were gaps in the layers of fibreglass-type material, which could “make the boat more prone to cracks in extreme seas”, a marine surveyor told me.

Clipper had the entire fleet surveyed in February and March 2013. They had the “bad parts” cut out of the new boats and relaminated, according to Knox-Johnston. Not an easy job, given the scale of the problem, or the time frame in which repairs had to be done. The 2013-14 race was due to start in just over six months’ time. It couldn’t be delayed. Sponsors were signed up, the jamboree of corporate backers, supporters and families was already planned in each port.

Crew members later expressed concerns that there were too many problems to fix in the short time before departure. Garmin crew member Kira Pecherska, an experienced and highly qualified sailor, said there was no time for proper sea trials. “If you send a boat on a transatlantic journey, especially with beginners on board, who have no experience in sailing at all, at least these boats must be trusted. And you can only trust your boat when you test it.” (Clipper Ventures said: “Clipper Race yachts are well built, well tested and maintained by a dedicated and highly skilled maintenance team who travel to every port of call on the race route.”)

The source who works at Clipper Ventures told me there was anxiety about reporting problems: “There is a fear culture, that prevents a lot of that. They [skippers] are thinking, I’m going to get crucified for letting that happen.”

According to Clipper Ventures, on stopovers Knox-Johnston and Ward have “been accessible to all sailing staff and crew for any questions or concerns. They created a culture of openness and this continues with all Clipper Ventures staff today.”

A t about 2pm on 18 November 2017, Simon Speirs came up on deck, wearing a foul-weather jacket and salopettes. Conditions were rough: his fellow sailors had never seen such massive seas. His wedding ring was tied around his neck on a leather shoelace: jewellery was considered a safety hazard on board. He was one of five crew on the foredeck lowering the headsail. He was attached to the deck with a safety tether.

At 2.14pm, Great Britain was hit by a huge wave. The yacht dropped into a trough, slewed violently, and Speirs was thrown into the water. One crew member, who did not want to be named, saw Speirs with his lifejacket inflated, being dragged alongside the boat. He leaned over to try to grab him, but Speirs was just out of reach. He tried pulling on the tether, but the boat was going too fast. He could see Speirs was struggling as the water buffeted him. “He was constantly being hit by the waves. Never able to gather his breath.”

The crew member managed to hand Speirs a rope with a lifting hook to attach to his lifejacket, in order to winch him out of the water. Speirs tried to clip the rope to his lifejacket, but he was getting exhausted. “Water was going over his face and he was being bashed against the side of the boat.” As Speirs was dragged through the sea, his clip bent out of shape. At 2.22pm, it snapped open.

“My immediate thought was, thank God, he’s not going to drown by being dragged along by this boat,” said the crew member. “We can get the boat under control and go back and get him. We’ll get him in two minutes. It’s not dark. It will be fine.” But turning the boat around in strong wind and very rough seas was not easy. It took three attempts to retrieve Speirs from the sea. Finally, at 2.54pm, 40 minutes after he fell in the water, six crew lifted Speirs on board Great Britain. His lifejacket was cut off and crew carefully carried him below deck. He was already dead.

After Speirs’s body was brought aboard, the skipper radioed to the Australian coastguard. Clipper tried to contact Margaret, but when they couldn’t get through they called the family home and broke the news to their son Toby. “They told him his father had died,” said Margaret. “A 17-year-old lad who is on his own at home. Toby is a sensible lad but I’m sure it has scarred him for life. Clipper did wrong by us, very wrong by us.”

“We tried to contact Mrs Speirs, Simon’s emergency contact. Unfortunately she was not at home and her mobile phone was switched off,” said Jeremy Knight, then chief operating officer at Clipper Ventures, in an email to the crew of Great Britain, after being informed that the Guardian was investigating Speirs’s death. “This decision to break the news to Simon’s son has proved difficult for the family, and we understand that,” Knight wrote. “But the alternative, holding off and risking the family finding out through the media, was much worse.”

At 7pm that evening, the race director called Margaret and told her that her husband would be buried at sea in eight hours. “He was not giving me any options. He told me they had come to that decision for the benefit of the crew so that they wouldn’t have to travel with Simon’s body on board. And they told me the burial at sea would be at three o’clock in the morning our time. And by three o’clock in the morning we did have some friends and family gathered. The vicar came and we read the service at home that they were having in the Southern Ocean as if we were sharing it.

“The burial at sea has robbed me and my family of the opportunity of laying Simon to rest at a place of our choice and allowing us to say goodbye to him in a way that we would have wished to,” she continued. “It has also deprived our family of the opportunity for a coroner’s inquest. We didn’t get a chance to put questions, hear the responses, to help us understand what happened.”

Burns quit Clipper Ventures at the end of leg four. “Andy didn’t enjoy a second on that boat after Simon died,” said the crew member who had tried to rescue Speirs. Jeffery didn’t do the final leg, as planned. After Speirs’s death, he did not feel right leaving his wife and two daughters.

After Speirs’s death, the MCA would not allow the Clipper boats to sail with only one professional onboard. Clipper Ventures had to recruit a second qualified mate for each boat in the fleet for the rest of the 2017-18 race.

The MCA investigation into the death of Simon Speirs was closed in 2020. “The MCA received strong legal advice that the evidence was not enough to bring a prosecution,” stated a spokesperson. The MCA referred the case to Hampshire police to follow up an allegation of fraud in the certification of the boats, and they concluded that there were no grounds to pursue an investigation.

Ward was awarded an OBE in 2018 for his services to the economy and to the Great Britain marketing campaign. Knight retired from his role as COO of Clipper Ventures in April 2022 and is currently a magistrate. When we contacted Knox-Johnston in November 2022, he was at sea.

One bright morning last month I spoke to Speirs’s sons Mike and Toby on Zoom. For more than two years, the family had been fighting a civil action against Clipper Ventures, charging the company with an “immature safety culture”. They wanted to make Clipper Ventures answer for some of the failings that had led to their father’s death. “If you offer a service that is dangerous you have a responsibility to make it as safe as is reasonably possible and I don’t think that was done,” said Toby.

At the end of February, Clipper Ventures paid the family the net sum of £140,000 to settle the case. The family believe the timing of the settlement was no accident. Clipper Ventures is up for sale. In settling the case, the company admitted no wrongdoing. But the family felt vindicated. They donated the money to the RNLI.

Nothing can make up for the loss of their father. Toby is a student at his father’s alma mater, Queens’ College, Cambridge. “I just wish I could talk to Dad about that,” he said. Mike longs to tell his father about the grandchildren he never knew.

For Margaret, the settlement has brought a sense of relief. “I can hang up my sword and put all things to do with Clipper Ventures behind me,” she told me recently in an email. Simon Speirs had always been a loving husband and father. Now they could once again remember him not just by the way he died, but as the remarkable man he was.

This article was amended on 11 May 2023 to correctly refer to the Solent, rather than the “River Solent”.

• The long read

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After sailing around the world, Cole Brauer says she's more grounded than ever

C ole Brauer's adventure put her in the history books and in the heart of the most isolated and dangerous places on Earth. Not to mention Instagram .

The southern oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific that Brauer endured alone in her 30,000-mile sailboat voyage brought her face-to-face with bigger waves and storms than most people will ever see."It's like going to Mars and hoping that you can breathe," says Brauer, who became the first American woman this month to sail solo and nonstop around the globe . "It's not made for humans."

She's now a seafaring celebrity who's been deluged with more questions about aquatic travel and surviving the dangers of the deep than Jules Verne and Jacques Cousteau. That's because Brauer's social media followers now total half a million, with many asking about her journey and how she did it.

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"With this newfound fame, I want to keep my feet on the ground," says the 29-year-old from Long Island. She's looking to chart a new course in the sailing industry, which has historically been a bastion of elitism and exclusivity, she said.

Brauer used Starlink − the low-orbit satellite network owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk − to get an internet signal on her voyage, so that she could talk to her team, FaceTime with her mom and post videos to Instagram from aboard her 40-foot Class40 sailboat, First Light.

She departed from A Coruña, Spain, on Oct. 29 and was at sea for 130 days. She competed against 15 male sailors, eight of whom had to drop out. Sailors set off at staggered times, depending on the speed of their boat. Brauer finished second in the race, behind France's Phillipe Delamare.

"Cole put in a tremendous effort to achieve a tremendous result," said Marco Nannini, who organized the Global Solo Challenge race.

Treacherous conditions in the southern hemisphere

Because the race took Brauer around the world, she had to endure scorching temperatures near the equator and near-freezing cold in the globe's southern oceans − where waters are more choppy and dangerous to sail, she said.

"I always had respect for the ocean, but this was an absolute different level," Brauer said. "It's beautiful. It's uninhabited. It's just untouched by humans."

Stronger winds and underwater currents in the Indian, South Atlantic and Pacific oceans often react to form bigger waves and "crazy storms," Brauer said, making those areas "some of the most dangerous places to be on the planet."

Unlike the part of the Atlantic Ocean stretching between North America and Europe, the southern oceans have a lot less traffic, Brauer said. During the two months she sailed there, she said she only saw one other boat. The weather was colder, greyer and the nights were much shorter.

The scariest moment came about two weeks from the end of race, when in a period of just a couple days, a fellow competitor had to abandon his ship because it started to sink, and another competitor had to do the same after his boat lost its mast.

It caused Brauer to feel paranoid, she said, even imagining noises coming from her own boat, which was also going through some normal wear and tear.

"I just felt like, 'Oh my gosh, what's going to break next,'" she said. "Is the boat going to break in half?"

Alone in the middle of the ocean, Brauer felt homesickness, then zen

Brauer made it all the way around the world the same way any sailor goes from one point to another: Staying out of direct wind and tacking from one direction to the next, until she finally got to the finish line.

"You want to go straight, but you can't," she explained. "You can't sail directly into the breeze, you have to tack back and forth at a 45-degree angle. I went around the world tacking, and jibing, and eventually you make it there − but there's a lot of twists and turns."

Brauer also had to constantly check the weather and change sails, while doing boat maintenance too.

"Everything has the possibility of breaking," Brauer said.

Brauer slept on a pile of bedding on the boat's floor for two to four hours at a time. She boiled water and used a warm wash cloth to bathe, she said. She packed 160 days' worth of freeze-dried food, including a peaches and cream oats mix that became her favorite.

Despite the technical challenges of sailing around the world, homesickness was by far the most challenging feeling Brauer had to endure during her months at sea, she said. In Spain, before she set off on the race, nightly family-style dinners with teammates and group outings in A Coruña created intense personal bonds that she longed for on the ocean.

"All of a sudden I had a family of like 12, and you get very used to being surrounded by all these boisterous and loud people," she said.

But then, something clicked one evening when Brauer was in the boat's bow watching the colors of the sunset bleed through a massive sail.

"My body and my mind finally got used to being out there and and knowing that this was like where I was supposed to be," she said.

During her journey, Brauer said she saw dolphins, sea turtles, plenty of fish and even a whale as big as her boat.

"It's just so magical," she said.

Pitch-black night skies were another highlight, Brauer said, especially when she was sailing through hot areas and the darkness brought cooler temperatures.

Brauer documented every moment on Instagram

While sailing nonstop, Brauer shared details of her journey with tens of thousands of followers on Instagram. At the start of the race, her Instagram account had 10,000 followers and now boasts nearly 500,000.

Creating and posting more than 150 original videos from onboard the boat allowed Brauer to stay connected with other people even when she was in the middle of the ocean.

Many of Brauer's videos showed her raw emotions up-close, like in one post from early in the race where she angrily vents about the moment she realized she'd have to fix several boat parts on her own.

"Right now I've been feeling just broken," she says in the video.

That vulnerability is what's allowing Brauer to chart a new course in the sailing industry, she said.

"I've shown a good piece of me, I've put my heart and soul out there and I think a lot of people are really afraid to do that," she told USA TODAY. "If you want to judge me for changing or molding myself a different way, you don't have to follow me."

Race win was a team effort

Brauer surrounded herself with a team of sailors and experts who helped guide her from ashore as she trekked around the globe. There were medical staff, a weather router, an expert rigger, an electronic systems manager, a sailmaker and many other team members helping Brauer.

Next, Brauer and her behind-the-scenes team are preparing for the Vendée Globe in 2028, another around-the-world race with stricter rules and a bigger cash prize. She won 5,000 euros (about $5,430) for finishing second in the Global Solo Challenge.

That race will be far more difficult, Brauer said, because the sailors have to race on their own and cannot receive any verbal assistance from their teammates on land.

Almost two weeks since landing on dry land, Brauer said she now craves being out on the ocean more than ever, and even feels a sense of pain when she's not able to see the water or look up to see a sky completely covered in white, fluffy clouds.

"The the fear used to be about the boat, when I was on the boat. Now the fear is not being out there," she said. "I'm not afraid of the ocean, I'm afraid of not being on the ocean."

As for her goal of sailing around the world?

"I did everything that it took to get here and now I can bask in it," she said. "I made the biggest dream that I could possibly think of doing and then did it."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: After sailing around the world, Cole Brauer says she's more grounded than ever

A record on the high seas: Cole Brauer becomes first US woman to sail solo around the world

On Thursday, Cole Brauer made history, becoming the first American woman to sail solo nonstop around the world. The 29-year-old from Long Island, New York, celebrated at the finish line in Spain by drinking champagne from her trophy.

Friends, peers and sailing enthusiasts had been cheering Brauer on since last October, when she embarked on her more than four-month journey.

Race organizer Marco Nannini told USA TODAY he started the Global Solo Challenge to "create a platform for sailors like Cole to showcase her skills and move on to a pro sailor career."

While at sea Brauer kept her more than 400,000 Instagram followers updated − and entertained − with videos from onboard First Light. The trip was extremely challenging and physically exhausting, Brauer said in one video from December.

In the post, she describes how frustrated she felt when she had to fix and replace different parts of the boat.

"I don't want you guys to think I'm like Superwoman or something," Brauer said. "Right now I've been feeling just broken," she added, describing how she had to fix the boat's autopilot system after injuring her torso against the side of the boat's hull amid intense waves.

Who is Cole Brauer?

Brauer is from Long Island and competed for the University of Hawaii sailing team. She went to high school in East Hampton, New York, her university team website says. She was the youngest of more than a dozen sailors, or skippers, in the Global Solo Challenge.

The professional sailor lives in Boothbay, Maine, and during the spring and summer, she can be also found in Newport, Rhode Island, gearing up for races, the Newport Daily News reported last year .

Brauer has sailed on First Light, a 40-foot yacht, for over five years, the outlet reported.

"I always said I wanted to race around the world in this boat," she told the newspaper.

From above and below First Light's deck, Brauer shared aspects of her journey with followers and die-hard sailing fans.

On New Year's Eve, she donned a dress and danced at midnight , and in another post, she showed off how many pull-ups she can do.

As the only woman racing solo, nonstop around the world in the first Global Solo Challenge, Brauer said she was determined to prove there's nothing women and girls cannot accomplish.

"I push so much harder when someone's like, 'No, you can't do that,'" Brauer told NBC Nightly News . "And I'm like, 'OK, watch me.'"

Brauer is the first American woman to sail solo around the world. But Kay Cottee of Australia was the first woman in the world to accomplish the milestone, sailing off from Sydney Harbor in Australia in November 1987 and returning 189 days later.

On her profile page on the Global Solo Challenge website, Brauer said she wanted to send a message to the sailing community that it's time to leave its male-dominated culture in the past. In the profile, Brauer took aim at a lack of equal pay and what she describes as harassment in the sailing industry.

"Just as well as this community has built me up it has broken me and my fellow female teammates down. I am doing this race for them," Brauer said.

Brauer and her spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

How long was Cole Brauer at sea?

Brauer was sailing for over four months after departing on Oct. 29.

She finished second in the race, behind a sailor who departed about a month before she did.

The start times differed because that first place boat, Phillipe Delamare's Mowgli, is much slower, Nannini said, explaining the race's staggered start times.

"The format means that if you enter on a slow, small boat you can still win, which makes it much more inclusive than an event where a bigger budget is a definite advantage," he said.

France's Delamare will win first-place prize money of 7,500 euros (about $8,140), Brauer will win 5,000 euros (about $5,430) and the third place finisher will win 2,500 euros (about $2,710), Nannini said.

How dangerous was Cole Brauer's sailing race?

A medical team including a nurse and a physician trained Brauer and sent her on her journey with medicines and medical supplies, in case of any health issues, according to her Instagram account.

Early in the race, Brauer administered her own IV with a saline solution after she became dehydrated, according to one video posted to her social media.

Brauer's most serious health scare happened in early December when she said gnarly ocean conditions caused the boat to jolt, throwing her across the inside of the boat and slamming her hard against a wall.

Her ribs were badly bruised as a result, and her medical team told her to alternate between taking Advil and Tylenol, Brauer said on Instagram.

"Rigging up a sleeping seat belt has been added to my priority list," she said in the post's caption. "I know I'm very lucky that this wasn't a lot worse."

What is the Global Solo Challenge?

The inaugural Global Solo Challenge is a nonstop sailing race in which competitors departed last year from A Coruña, Spain.

The race encompasses nearly 30,000 miles and takes place mostly in the southern hemisphere.

After leaving waters off the coast of Spain, sailors travel south and around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. The race then includes the two other capes that together make up the famous three great capes: Australia's Cape Leeuwin and South America's Cape Horn.

About half of the other competitors dropped out of the race, according to racing data posted online by the Global Solo Challenge.

Delamare finished the race late last month after embarking on his journey in late September 2023, according to race data.

Contributing: Associated Press

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7 Global Sailing Races to Follow

By: Zeke Quezada, ASA Destinations , Event , Inside Sailing , Sailing Fun

As American Sailing evolves our curriculum to offer more racing options through North U, I am attempting to learn more about sailboat racing. If you are following along with my journey to become a racer, you know that I am a neophyte when it comes to racing. I am a cruiser. I am a self-described “lazy sailor” that does not focus on trimming my sails and instead works on not dropping my chips and salsa while sailing.

You can get an idea of my journey in my last two pieces on sailing and racing:

SAIL TRIM FOR CRUISERS: WHY TRIM YOUR SAILS?

HOW TO GRADUATE FROM CRUISER TO RACER — STEPS TO START RACING SAILBOATS

I plan to find out more about the serious and not-so-serious side of sailboat racing. Many people, even non-sailors, know what the America’s Cup is, and may have even turned on a sports network to catch a SailGP race. But there is far more to sailing races than those two.

Here’s an overview of seven of the big races, regattas, and race series that occur regularly around the world. These are iconic events, both old and new, that shape the world of racing and have inspired sailors for generations to challenge themselves to new heights, both on and off the water.

Cowes Week is one of the oldest and most prestigious sailing regattas in the world, held every August in the Solent waters off Cowes, UK. The event has been around since 1826, and it’s known for attracting some of the best sailors from around the globe. It’s the largest sailing regatta of its kind in the world, with up to 1,000 boats and 8,000 competitors taking part in the 40 daily sailing races.

Whether you’re an Olympic or world-class pro, or just a weekend sailor, Cowes Week is an event that has something for everyone. And even if you’re not into sailing, the regatta is still a spectacle to behold – with stunning views of the coastline and plenty of festivities both on and off the water. 

Once you discover the allure of racing it appears that Cowes Week might be worthy of a sailing vacation that includes either participating in a race or just being involved as a spectator. I am not there yet, but it could happen.

Next Race Date: July 29 – Aug 4, 2023 Cowes Week Website

The Ocean Race

I do know about The Ocean Race only because prior to the new owner taking over, it was the Volvo Ocean Race for twenty years and that is how they got me to buy a Volvo. I walked into the dealership and saw some mesmerizing sailboat pictures and I signed the contract and drove away.  I am a sucker.

The Ocean Race is a round-the-world yacht race that occurs every three years. It’s known as one of the most challenging sailing races globally, spanning over 45,000 nautical miles. The race consists of multiple legs and lasts about nine months. The race starts in Europe and ends in Asia or Oceania. The exact route changes with each edition of the race.

Both professional sailors and amateur sailors can participate in this race. The teams are composed of eight sailors, all racing on the same boats. These boats are specially designed to be fast and robust, capable of enduring the tough conditions of the open ocean.

This race used to be known as the Whitbread Round the World Race until it was renamed the Volvo Ocean Race and now is known as The Ocean Race.

Next Race Date: Currently in progress at the time of the post! The Ocean Race Website

America’s Cup 

My first foray into sailing racing was when Dennis Conner won the America’s Cup.  I was a kid watching the news and learned about sailing through this huge event on the vessel, Stars and Stripes. Years later I took a ride on what I was told was the same boat. I was skeptical about the origin of the vessel I was on but that day I learned a lot about how much I loved the idea of sailing. A couple of years later I bought a boat.

The America’s Cup is held every few years on dates agreed between the defender and the challenger. There is no fixed schedule, but the races have generally been held every three to four years. The most recent America’s Cup match took place in March 2021. 

The 37th America’s Cup Official Opening Ceremony will be held in Barcelona on 22 August 2024. The Final Preliminary Event and the Challenger Selection Series will follow, leading up to the America’s Cup Match that will start on 12 October 2024. During 2023/early 2024, there is potential for up to three preliminary events. By June 2023, all the teams will have their base set up and be training in Barcelona.

The competition takes place between teams representing different countries or yacht clubs. The event involves a series of races where high-tech racing yachts, known as America’s Cup Class boats, compete in head-to-head races that test their speed, agility, and teamwork.

The competition dates back to 1851 when a schooner called America won a race around the Isle of Wight. The trophy, now known as the America’s Cup, was donated to the New York Yacht Club and has since become one of the most prestigious prizes in sailing.

Next Race Date: October 12, 2024 The America’s Cup Website

Vendée Globe

If I was a racer I am sure that The Vendée Globe would be the race that would inspire me to go hard into this type of adventure. The Vendée Globe is a single-handed (solo) non-stop yacht race around the world without assistance. It takes place every four years and is an extreme form of sailing.  It is said that more people have been into space than have finished the Vendee Globe. First held in 1989, the race starts and ends in Les Sables-d’Olonne, a small town on the west coast of France, and covers a distance of approximately 45,000 km.

Sailors must navigate their way through some of the most treacherous waters on the planet, including the Southern Ocean and the Cape Horn. Sailors must rely solely on their own skills, knowledge, and experience to complete the race. They face extreme weather conditions, sleep deprivation, and the constant threat of danger as they navigate their way around the world. 

The boats are designed specifically for the event and are some of the most advanced sailing vessels in the world, capable of speeds of up to 30 knots.

Next Race Date: November 10, 2024 The Vend é e Globe Website

St. Maarten Heineken Regatta

I must confess that I had a very nice t-shirt from this regatta that I purchased at the St. Maarten airport. I was leaving the country and realized that I had not bought any souvenirs so I found this shirt in the terminal and wore it like a proud sailboat racer. I was an imposter, I had never even seen any of the race and I did not know it existed.

The St. Maarten Heineken Regatta is a massive sailing event that takes place on the island of Sint Maarten in the Caribbean. It’s actually the biggest regatta in the Caribbean and the largest warm water regatta in the world.

The event attracts top sailors from 37 countries, who compete in a series of races over four days. The competition draws in sailors that are both professionals and passionate amateurs who just love to sail.

Next Race Date: Feb 29 – Mar 3, 2024 St. Maarten Regatta Website

Transpacific Yacht Race (Transpac)

If you live and sail in Southern California, you will hear about Transpac. I have heard about it, and I did not realize it was a race. I always figured it was a group of sailors who sailed across the Pacific to Hawaii in a large caravan, like a large flotilla, without any daily stops. I will confess that when I sailed my Catalina 27 five times a week, I had a few fantasies about tagging along in my boat and stopping over in Hawaii with the Transpac crowd. But, unfortunately, I was misguided.

The Transpacific Yacht Race (Transpac) is a biennial offshore yacht race held in odd-numbered years starting off the Pt. Fermin buoy in San Pedro, California, and ending off Diamond Head in Hawaii, a distance of around 2,225 nautical miles (2,560 mi; 4,121 km). It is one of the world’s oldest major ocean races for sailing yachts. The race was first held in 1906 and made a biennial event in 1939 to alternate with the Bermuda Race.

Next Race Date: June 27, 2023 TransPac Website

Now in its 4th season, SailGP is a newer series race held as a competition between nations on identical F50 catamarans. Currently the nations competing include Australia, New Zealand, Emirates Great Britain, France, Canada, Denmark, United States, Switzerland, and Spain. The race is held on weekends in iconic locations around the world modeled in a grand prix format similar to Formula 1 in which points accumulate throughout the season based on winnings from each race and contribute toward a championship. 

The race series has a really great app you can use to follow along and watch live, or on YouTube, and they are doing wonderful work expanding the sport’s impact initiatives through their second championship leaderboard that tracks the positive actions the teams make to reduce their overall carbon footprint and help accelerate inclusivity in sailing. The coverage of this series is great to watch – it has a high production value including live mics on the sailors and post race interviews with the sailors. The commentators do a good job educating the audience as to the basics of sailboat racing as well as explaining the racing rules.

Season 4 Opening Race: June 16-17, 2023 Chicago Sail GP Website

So which race strikes your fancy? Here’s hoping you enjoy some of these and find some new inspiration in your sailing journey!

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She sailed around the world solo — and learned to stop and smell the ocean breeze

Cole brauer became the first american woman to complete the global solo challenge.

Social Sharing

It took just four months for Cole Brauer to complete her historic solo sailing journey around the world — but she's already missing that ocean air. 

"I definitely miss being out on the water already. I'm 100-per-cent ready to go back," Brauer told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "It's something that I miss at every second of every single day, just that fresh, pure ocean air."

Brauer arrived at A Coruña, Spain — the same place she started the trek — on March 7 from her trip around the world, making her the first American woman to complete the race known as the Global Solo Challenge.

The 29-year-old was the youngest competitor and the only woman of the fleet of 16 boats. She finished in second place. Philippe Delamare of France won the race, with the lone Canadian, William MacBrien, unable to finish after his boat started taking on water.

The journey spanned over 48,200 km, venturing to the capes of Africa, Australia and South America.

Brauer says that as a very driven person, the trip helped her slow down and enjoy life.

"If you just gorge yourself and eat all of your food within the first month, it's going to be very depressing for three months after that," said Brauer.

"So you really, really learn how to slow down, enjoy life, watch the sunrises, watch the sunsets."

Keeping people up-to-date

Brauer says the 130-day journey reminded of her the isolation that came during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Even during COVID, I thrived being alone and writing and taking notes and sailing by myself. And I feel like that was exactly the same way that I had felt on the boat," said Brauer.

But when Brauer left A Coruña on Oct. 29, 2023, she kept in touch with her friends by posting on Instagram with the help of the satellite internet service Starlink, and the team that was helping her on the journey.

And she didn't just share the good news. Part of the way through the journey, Brauer injured her rib. 

"I wanted to start this video by saying the last, like, 24 hours I've been so angry," she said in one of her video updates.

"Angry that things keep going wrong. I'm angry that my ribs hurt so bad. I don't want you guys to think I'm like [a] Superwoman or something."

Brauer said that was the lighter version of the story. In the original recording, she says she was cursing half the time, which made it not so suitable for social media. 

"For me, posting on Instagram, it was kind of a virtual diary. And sometimes you just need to get it out. And the majority of those videos were me just getting it off my chest," she said. 

When she arrived ashore in Spain, her friends and family were emotional that she had made it back. But Brauer says she didn't feel like she had even left, because she had been able to stay in contact with the people important to her. 

She says she was able to virtually join friends' dinner parties and talk to her mother on a regular basis. 

An inspiration

Brauer took on the challenge at what some might call a disadvantage. She is 152 cm tall, and has been prohibited from competing in some races because of her height. 

But Brauer didn't feel like it was a disadvantage.

"I've never been a bigger person. I only know what it's like to be a five foot, two inches, 100-pound woman," she said.

"To do things on the boat, I've always had to do things with a little bit extra steps and using mechanical advantage, using pulleys, using things that help me."

She hopes her story will help get more people into sailing. She suggests people check out boat clubs, which are far less expensive than yacht clubs.

"There is some infrastructure out there for cheaper sailing opportunities. There's just, one, there's not that many people that actually know about it. And two, a lot of kids are usually into doing, you know, more recognized team sports," said Brauer. 

As for Brauer, she is already getting ready to set sail again in June for a race. It won't take her around the entire world again, but she's looking forward to getting back on the water.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philip Drost is a journalist with the CBC. You can reach him by email at [email protected].

Produced by Chris Trowbridge

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Latest News: Fickle First Week for McIntyre Ocean Globe Race

days hrs mins secs

-135 days until the start of Leg 2!Start Day!

5 November Race Start Leg 2, Cape Town to Auckland, Table Bay Harbour (Live streamed on Facebook and YouTube ).

Entrants depart the V&A marina from 10:30hrs local time. Official start 14:00hrs local time. The race start can be viewed from East Pier, Cape Town Harbour.

Follow the fleet on our live tracker as the boats make their way from Punta del Este , Uruguay, to Cowes , UK, on leg 4 of the Ocean Globe Race. The fleet left Uruguay on March 5th and ETA in Cowes is between April 11th-26th.

Leg results, in the spirit of the original 1973 whitbread race, celebrating the 50th anniversary, it's all about the stories, follow the race.

Get all the latest McIntyre Adventure news delivered to your email.

Turning the tide for ordinary sailors with a dream

The golden age of fully crewed ocean racing around the world seems a distant memory..

Huge budgets and elite professionals racing custom carbon yachts costing upwards of €1m, that 'fly' on foils steered by sophisticated autopilots, not sailors, where shore teams via satellite are making tactical decisions are the new norm. Technology moves so fast that sailors the world over, while marvelling at these advances, have been left behind and look back fondly at the Corinthian days of the 1973 Whitbread Race and dream.

A time when adventurous sailors put together their own campaigns, skippers and crew made all decisions and the fleet was evenly matched. A time when budgets played a small part, technology was minimal and humans dared to achieve.

Well it’s time for a reality check. Time to step back, slow down, take a deep breath and experience life defining moments!

Following the hugely successful 50th anniversary Golden Globe Race in 2018, and again in 2022, McIntyre Adventure is proud to launch the 50th anniversary celebration of that first fully crewed round the world race. This retro Ocean Globe Race (OGR) takes to the high seas with 14 teams on September 10th from Ocean Village, following the same route as the clipper ships and the inaugural 1973 Whitbread Race in similar, affordable yachts.

The Ocean Globe Race is the future of accessible around the world ocean yacht racing for any sailor and has a huge future. This opportunity returns after nearly 30 years and is set to inspire and capture the imagination of sailors and passionate followers the world over. Already nine teams are preparing for the 2027 OGR as sailors grasp what this opportunity truly means. 

Turning the tide for ordinary sailors with a dream.

Don McIntyre Ocean Globe Race Founder

2023 Entrants

Translated 9

• Boat Type: Swan 65
• Skipper: Marco Trombetti / Vittorio Malingri
• Country: ITALY

• Boat Type: Swan 53
• Skipper: Jean d'Arthuys
• Country: FRANCE

• Boat Type: Baltic 55
• Skipper: Campbell Mackie
• Country: AUSTRALIA

• Boat Type: Swan 53 (Hull No. 17)
• Skipper: Rufus Brand
• Country: SOUTH AFRICA

• Boat Type: 58ft Bruce Farr Design
• Skipper: Heather Thomas
• Country: UNITED KINGDOM

Pen Duick VI

• Boat Type: 73ft Bermudan Ketch
• Skipper: Marie Tabarly

• Boat Type: Swan 65 Ketch
• Skipper: Dominique Dubois

• Boat Type: Swan 51
• Skipper: Taylor Grieger
• Country: USA

Galiana WithSecure

• Boat Type: Swan 55 (Hull No. 2)
• Skipper: Tapio Lehtinen
• Country: FINLAND

L’Esprit d’équipe

• Boat Type: 33 Export
• Skipper: Lionel Regnier

Spirit of Helsinki

• Boat Type: Swan 651
• Skipper: Jussi Paavoseppä

• Boat Type: 60ft Aluminium Sloop
• Skipper: Tanneguy Raffray

White Shadow

• Boat Type: Swan 57
• Skipper: Jean-Christophe Petit
• Country: SPAIN

• Boat Type: Nautor Swan 57
• Skipper: Mark Sinclair

Latest News

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Pen Duick VI Man Overboard Crew Recovered at Start of McIntyre Ocean Globe Race

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Busy Finish Line in Punta del Este – Hours Separate The Three New Cape Horners! It was a rainy, nighttime arrival for the former Whitbread winner, L’Esprit d’équipe FR (85),…

Featured Video

Press Conference Intro - Yacht Club Punta del Este

The Ocean Globe Race (OGR) is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the iconic Whitbread Race the best way possible, by sailing around the world like it’s 1973.

The opportunity returns to race around the globe

Time to step back, slow down, take a deep breath and go..

With so many of the beautiful yachts from previous Whitbreads being rescued and restored, as has Maiden of course, it seems only fitting that they should be raced around the world again! Tracy Edwards MBE, Maiden

I'm delighted to hear that a 50th anniversary edition of the Whitbread is being launched. The Ocean Globe will be a great adventure as well as a great race for the participants. What a challenge one can set themselves? My congratulations to the organisers - it's such a bold and exciting move. Sir Chay Blyth

Of all the challenges, this Ocean Globe Race beats all its predecessors, the Whitbread and those that followed in its wake. The late Bob Fisher, veteran yachting journalist and author

This supreme challenge is an opportunity for those who could usually only dream of participating in such an event. Take it from me, this will offer an experience of a lifetime with lasting memories that will forever remind you of a unique and outstanding achievement. Ashley Manton, Chairman International Association of Cape Horners

What a brilliant idea to give people another chance to have the fun, to make the friends and to share the experiences we had fifty years ago. There will be days and weeks of being terrified, exhausted, cold, wet and miserable; other times you will be excruciatingly bored, but you will make friends for life, with a deep friendship born of the shared experience of danger, exhaustion and discomfort, and at the end you will realise it was the best thing you have done in your entire life. Butch Dalrymple Smith, Crew Sayula Winner 1973

The first Whitbread Race in '73 was a huge adventure and became a major milestone in the history of ocean racing. This retro Ocean Globe Race marking the 50th anniversary of that first race will be just as exciting and provides a unique opportunity for ordinary sailors to test themselves in the rolling surf of southern oceans once more. Barry Pickthall, Author of five Whitbread Race books

Those early Whitbread days really were full of passion. Every edition put up new challenges with the human element so important. The stories and characters became legend and we had a lot of fun. I have lots of memories of 'Fisher & Paykel', many of which are about coming only second! This new Classic Challenge in the Ocean Globe is going to excite a lot of people on and off the water. Imagine if Steinlager and F&P return! Grant Dalton, Whitbread and Volvo Ocean Race legend

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Cole Brauer becomes first American woman to sail solo, nonstop around world

A joyful Cole Brauer returned in her boat Thursday to A Coruña, 130 days after sailing away from the Spanish port city.

Completing the epic voyage made the 29-year-old the first American woman to sail around the world nonstop, with no one else aboard. Brauer’s solo feat, which unfolded over approximately 30,000 miles, was also good for a second-place finish in rigorous Global Solo Challenge.

“Amazing finish!!!! So stoked!” Brauer wrote on Instagram. “Thank you to everyone that came together and made this process possible.”

Brauer provided regular updates on her voyage, which began Oct. 29, as her Instagram following burgeoned from less than 100,000 to almost half a million. Along the way, the East Hampton, N.Y., native shared battles with high winds, monstrous waves and maintenance issues on her Class 40 monohull, named “First Light.”

The 5-2, 100-pound sailor, who learned to sail at the University of Hawaii, posted clips of herself getting bruised ribs when suddenly flung across the interior of her boat and self-administering fluids intravenously to ward off dehydration. Her journey took her around the three great capes — Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, Australia’s Cape Leeuwin and South America’s treacherous Cape Horn — and through Point Nemo, an area in the Pacific Ocean so far from any land that the nearest humans are often orbiting overhead in the International Space Station.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by COLE BRAUER OCEAN RACING (@colebraueroceanracing)

According to race organizer Marco Nannini, over half of the 16 entrants in this installment of the event have had to retire before completing it. One passed a kidney stone at sea, per Nannini, before making landfall in New Zealand for medical assistance, and another was semi-submerged and out of contact for “24 very long hours prior to rescue” after a collision in the remote Pacific.

Brauer joins a group of fewer than 200 people known to have sailed solo around the world without stopping. The first, according to a list maintained by the International Association of Cape Horners , was England’s Robin Knox-Johnston in 1969.

The first woman to accomplish the feat, per Nannini, was Australia’s Kay Cottee in 1988. Brauer is the 18th.

“It was a long and emotional day,” Nannini wrote Thursday, “which started well before sunrise after a sleepless night monitoring Cole’s progress, meeting her at sea, watching her sail at First Light into A Coruna and celebrating her outstanding achievement. Well done Cole!”

Brauer was the youngest competitor in the Global Solo Challenge field — and the only woman. Of making her mark in a “fully male-dominated world,” as she put it in a recent interview with NBC , Brauer said, “I think that it takes a lot of strength to actually push and to strive into this industry, and I really want women to understand that it’s possible.”

“It would be amazing if there was just one other girl that saw me and said, ‘Oh, I can do that, too,’” she said .

She had lived a life of adventure. Then came the ultimate sailing race.

Last year, Brauer won the opening leg of the One-Two Yacht Race , which involved sailing solo from Rhode Island to Bermuda. All competitors picked up a second sailor for the return trip, and Brauer finished first again with teammate Catherine Chimney as they became the first all-female duo to win the race overall.

Each leg of that competition took approximately three days, barely a toe in the water compared to the duration of Brauer’s just-completed circumnavigation, but the first three days of the Global Solo Challenge were some of the hardest for her. She endured a “ pretty rough, rough, rough start ” making her way around the Spanish coast after departing A Coruña, an experience she described on Instagram as a “trial by fire.”

The second day of the event began with Brauer vomiting — “I’ve never had seasickness before in my life,” she told her followers, adding that she may have suffered from food poisoning — and shortly thereafter she gave herself the IV on the advice of her medical team.

Brauer shared plenty of posts in her usually upbeat demeanor, but a Dec. 8 video found her “ angry that things keep going wrong” with her boat. “Right now, I have been feeling just broken,” Brauer said with emotion. But she was smiling at the camera the next day while engaging in some “ self care ” as some technical issues got ironed out.

By Christmas Eve , Brauer was past Cape Leeuwin, close to the halfway point of the journey as she began the long, challenging stretch across the Pacific. After dodging some strong weather systems and enduring others, she passed Cape Horn and was finally back in the Atlantic in late January. Of course, there were still some “ horrendous conditions ” to deal with, but Brauer also shared excitement about the media coverage her exploits were attracting.

“So excited to move sailing into the mainstream!” Brauer wrote on Instagram late last month. “For far too long sailing and racing has been in the shadows maybe partially due to its attempts to keep its ‘traditions’ but those ‘traditions’ have also pushed really amazing sailors out of the industry due to burn out rates and unnecessary exclusivity. This hasn’t been easy one bit but it makes it all worth it to see that we are taking this industry from the dark and bringing it into the light.”

After making her long-awaited return to dry land, she told NBC , “It was really emotional, because I see my parents, I see my friends, my family — I see everyone — and this dream has become a reality.”

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LCE Old School is sailed consistently well - Andrea Francolini, RPAYC pic

Whisper is among the line and overall contenders - Andrea Francolini, RPAYC pic

Post start last year - Andrea Francolini, RPAYC pic

Race is on to win 2024 Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Yacht Race

Over 30 boats will be on the start line for the 2024 Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Yacht Race this Friday when monohulls, a multihull and two-handed entries will share the start line off Barrenjoey Headland for the 1pm start.  

Respected sailor, Theresa Michell, has joined forces with Paul Beath and his J/99, Verite, for their first major two-handed race together. Newcomers to the Pittwater Coffs, Beath did the 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart in two-handed mode with another co-skipper. He and Michell’s first two-handed training session was a four-day return trip from Hobart.

“It was all upwind. Not particularly pleasant,” Beath remembered. “One of the reasons she is doing this race with me is because she sailed with me fully crewed in the Sydney Gold Coast race and the rest of the Blue Water Pointscore last year and we get on well.

“And this race is at a nice time of year,” the Novocastrian said of the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club’s (RPAYC) 226 nautical mile race.

Although she halted racing at the end of the 1990s to raise a family, Michell’s credentials are outstanding in both two-handed and fully-crewed sailing, as a skipper, navigator and crew.

She contested the 5500 nautical mile two-handed Melbourne to Osaka race in 1999 on an Adams 10 that she also skippered in the 1998 Double-Handed Trans-Tasman Challenge from Sydney to New Plymouth in New Zealand. She has sailed on the international scene, done Sydney Hobarts and sailed an Olympic class dinghy.

“This is a new team in a new race and we think it’s a good distance. We’ll get our systems together and get organised,” Beath commented.

“It will be a demanding race because of the currents and fluctuating conditions.”

The pair are expected to be competitive against all-comers, including other two-handed entries such as Chris O’Neill, who returns with Blue Planet after finishing the race seventh overall last year.

“We also won PHS and were second in ORC – and these results were exactly the same in the two-handed division,” he said.

This time he will be co-skippered by Tom Johnston, who helped him to sixth in the two-handed division of the 2023 Sydney Hobart.

“It’s a fun race and a good location in Coffs, it’s not too strenuous and importantly, there’s been sufficient time between this race and the Sydney Hobart – I’ve forgotten all the pain,” O’Neill said wryly.

Among the latest fully crewed entries for the 38 th  ‘Pittwater to Coffs’ is David Griffith’s record breaking JV62 Whisper, which will likely battle Geoff Hill’s Santa Cruz 72, Antipodes, for line honours. Whisper is also a favourite for the overall win, but due to the many weather vagaries at this time of year, the race really is wide open in all classifications.

On his quarry, Whisper’s owner says: “With her long waterline length, if Antipodes gets reaching conditions, she is quick, she will take off. We’re in pretty good shape though and the boat’s in perfect order.”

Griffith says his crew will also hold them in good stead. Among them are Rear Admiral Lee Goddard, Michael Coxon, Dougie McGain, Michael Fountain and Brett Van Munster. 

“Either way, it’s a wonderful race and the Alfreds do a great job,” Griffith said. “Everyone loves a destination race and Coffs Harbour is a great destination with lots to do.”

Others chasing overall glory are regular DK46 rivals Khaleesi (Sandy Farquharson/Rob Aldis) and LCE Old School Racing (Mark Griffith). At the Nautilus Marine Insurance Sydney Harbour Regatta in early March, the latter placed second in the Open division on home turf, while Griffith’s boat, from RPAYC, was second. Another DK46, Nine Dragons, was declared the winner. 

Pierre Gal has entered the Asia catamaran Stealth 12.60 named Fez. The French expat, who lives on the NSW north coast, is a name locally and internationally, competing in the America’s Cup for France and has Australian victories too.

Incidentally, Gal won Division 4 of the 2019 Sydney Gold Coast race with Mistral, the same Lombard 34 that won the 2023 Pittwater Coffs race for two-handed sailors, Rupert Henry and Greg O’Shea last year.

Follow the fleet on the race tracker at:  https://yb.tl/pittwater2024

For all information go to:  www.pittwatertocoffs.com.au

Di Pearson/RPAYC media

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Shifting the ai narrative: from doomsday fears to pragmatic solutions.

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Artificial Intelligence, Race, Technology, USA, CHINA

The media often focuses on the potential risks of AI, such as chatbots expressing offensive sentiments, robotic machines operating unpredictably, and image generation being used for harassment. While these incidents are concerning, they do not represent the majority of AI applications. In fact, AI is increasingly being used to make breakthroughs in fields such as medicine, energy, and animal conservation, which suggests that a brighter future is possible. It is important to consider both the risks and benefits of AI in order to make informed decisions about how to use this technology.

Marc Benioff, CEO and co-founder of Salesforce, emphasized the transformative potential, stating, "Artificial intelligence and generative AI may be the most important technology of any lifetime". Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, recently argued at the Future Investment Initiative that for the US, "This is a place where the innovation ramp is so great that the most important thing really is what do you do in the next 18 months." He added that the testing ground is currently the military, and posed the key geopolitical question: "Can America and its allies get to a point of decisive dominance and then impose regulation on the rest of the world from that perspective of dominance? That would be the best outcome."

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 13: X/Tesla CEO Elon Musk (L) and Palantir CEO Alex Karp attend the "AI ... [+] Insight Forum" in the Kennedy Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on September 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. Lawmakers are seeking input from business leaders in the artificial intelligence sector, and some of their most ardent opponents, for writing legislation governing the rapidly evolving technology. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

However, one would not know the full context from some recent media coverage. The latest example is the discourse surrounding a report authored by an unknown firm at the apparent request of the U.S. government which portrays artificial intelligence as an existential threat. The report, written by the Gladstone AI Institute and titled 'An Action Plan to Increase the Safety and Security of Advanced AI', treats the technology as if it were nerve gas or a nuclear weapon, imbued with the ability to spiral out of control. With Asimov's laws absent , the authors recommend draconian restrictions on AI development.

AI's immense societal, technological and geopolitical potential should not be underestimated. However, even if the long-term risks are real, such apocalyptic rhetoric can be counterproductive. The history of any major technological transition, from the printing press to the internet, has seen both utopian boosterism and doomsday prophecies, with reality lying somewhere in between. This article aims to dispel the growing air of panic and explore the real subject we should be discussing - pragmatic policymaking to gain maximum benefit and security in this new AI era.

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The influence of AI on society, technology, and politics should be recognized. While potential risks exist, alarmist rhetoric may not be constructive. Throughout history, major technological advancements, such as the printing press and the internet, have been accompanied by both optimistic and pessimistic predictions, and the actual outcomes have often fallen somewhere in between. This article aims to address the growing sense of anxiety and focus on practical policymaking that can maximize the benefits and mitigate the risks of AI in the present era.

The Dangers of AI Apocalypticism

Worried businesswoman praying while looking at placard of artificial intelligence on the wall in the ... [+] office.

The Gladstone report portrays AI as an "extinction-level threat" to humanity. Such rhetoric is reminiscent of the early days of the internet when some viewed the TCP-IP protocol, Domain Name Systems, and browsing applications with similar trepidation. While understanding the potential risks of AI and any significant new technology is essential, fixating on worst-case hypothetical situations can be counterproductive and may even jeopardize technological leadership.

The doomsday scenarios surrounding AI are often based on claims that lack verifiable evidence and are highly speculative. The report itself acknowledges the uncertainty around the development of Artificial General Intelligence, stating that the "timescale and degree of risk are highly uncertain." Yet, it still provides recommendations based on the presumption that AGI is imminent and will be connected to all critical systems. While such scaremongering may capture public attention, when coupled with the endorsement of government institutions, it risks pressuring policymakers into an escalatory spiral of regulation that may do more harm than good.

Moreover, having a narrow focus and fixating on worst-case scenarios can divert attention from addressing the current, tangible challenges posed by AI. Strategic leaders recognize that such tunnel vision may result in missed opportunities and a standstill that hinders tackling the full range of issues. In the realm of AI, these concerns encompass bias, data privacy, and the impact of automation on employment. These are legitimate issues that require attention, even though they may persist in a less manageable way in a scenario where exaggerated reactions diminish the US's current AI edge. Overemphasizing a hypothetical AI doomsday could significantly draw attention away from these more immediate issues. Astute policymakers will base decisions on facts and expert insights, rather than getting caught up in the most sensational hopes or fears surrounding AI.

While it's understandable that there are calls for caution in AI development, history offers us valuable lessons on the counterproductive outcomes of halting technological progress. Dr. David Bray, Loomis Council Co-Chair and Distinguished Fellow at the non-partisan Stimson Center, notes , "History teaches us that a pause on AI could lead to secret development. Publicly stopping AI research might prompt nations to pursue advanced AI research in secret, which could have dire consequences for open societies. This scenario is akin to the 1899 Hague Convention, where major powers publicly banned poison-filled projectiles, only to continue their research in secret, eventually deploying harmful gases during World War I."

For the U.S. Competitiveness

The United States and China compete in tug-of-war before the earth, and the economic, trade and ... [+] political competition between the two countries

AI is crucial for maintaining American economic and geopolitical competitiveness in the 21st century. The Gladstone Report states, "The AI revolution is not just an opportunity, but also a geopolitical contest with immense consequences." Countries worldwide, especially China, are investing heavily in AI and making rapid progress. China, in particular, has had a national strategy since 2017 to establish a first-mover AI advantage, according to Stanford University translations. If the U.S. lags behind, it risks losing its leadership position and falling behind in future industries.

By 2030, one estimate suggests that AI will add $15.7 trillion to the world economy, with the US being one of the largest beneficiaries. This is not surprising, given the transformative potential of AI across various sectors. In healthcare, AI-powered imaging technologies detect, diagnose, and treat cancers with higher precision than ever before. In transportation, AI is revolutionizing mobility with self-driving cars, drones for delivery, self-docking yachts, and even spaceships capable of unprecedented speed and safety. AI is also streamlining transactions and reducing costs in finance, automating repetitive tasks in supply chains and driving innovation in education and online searches. The scale of innovation, efficiency, and growth enabled by AI is unprecedented. However, realizing these benefits requires appropriate policies that foster AI innovation, proliferation, and adoption.

The implications of AI extend beyond economics and into geopolitics. The report warns, "If the United States allows misguided fears to hinder its own AI progress, it risks ceding its leadership role to China." This could have significant implications for American power and influence on a global scale. AI will play a critical role in determining military and intelligence capabilities in the coming decades and will significantly impact the international balance of power through technological standards and cultural norms. If the United States falls behind in the race for AI advancement, it may find its values and interests marginalized on the world stage.

A Pragmatic Approach to AI Policy

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 30: U.S. President Joe Biden hands Vice President Kamala Harris the pen he ... [+] used to sign a new executive order regarding artificial intelligence during an event in the East Room of the White House on October 30, 2023 in Washington, DC. President Biden issued the executive order directing his administration to create a new chief AI officer, track companies developing the most powerful AI systems, adopt stronger privacy policies and "both deploy AI and guard against its possible bias," creating new safety guidelines and industry standards. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Given the importance of AI for American competitiveness, the question arises: what needs to be done? While we shouldn't buy into the doomsday hype, we also cannot ignore AI's real risks and challenges. We need to address them in a smart, nuanced way that reflects the specific context or use case. The concerns and policy prescriptions for a Netflix recommendation algorithm will be very different from those for AI in healthcare or national security. One-size-fits-all approaches or regulatory regimes are unlikely to be effective.

A thoughtful approach is required to address the complex issues stemming from AI, a technology deeply embedded in society, unlike a switchable power plant. What's crucial is a well-rounded, practical, and data-informed strategy that hones in on pressing AI concerns affecting people today: such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the transparency of high-stakes automated decisions impacting lives. While reports like the Gladstone report advocate for empowering individuals over their data and insist on bias testing for AI systems, it's equally vital to ensure the public and policymakers grasp the true capabilities and limitations of today's AI. Recent failures highlight the flaws in the prevailing narrative of AI omnipotence. Machines still have their limitations.

Regarding the Gladstone report's calls for 'investing in public education efforts to increase AI literacy,' caution is needed. If such "education" inculcates unwarranted fears or is pursued to advance narrow partisan or geopolitical agendas, it risks becoming a 21st-century version of "Reefer Madness" - a laughable, obsolete propaganda relic that tech-savvy youth mock and ignore. AI technology developers can and should educate the public to reduce hype and fear through outreach, transparency, and honesty. This is precisely how we can inoculate the public against both hype and fear. The government must also work hand in hand with industry to keep the US at the forefront of AI development while implementing commonsense safeguards.

Policymakers cannot do this alone. A broad spectrum of government, industry, and technologists at all levels must collaborate to keep the US at the forefront of AI development while advancing commonsense safeguards.

Getting AI right will take a village. Industry standards, best practices, and a culture of responsible innovation in the private sector, as mentioned in the Gladstone report, are not new concepts. We need policymakers, technologists, ethicists, and the public at large to come together and figure out how to maximize the benefits of this powerful technology while minimizing the downsides.

The Way Forward

If we start from the reality that we are halfway through an AI revolution – or are at the dawn of one – what are the principles that should guide our path forward so that the tech stays adaptive, innovative and empowering over the long term? We reap the economic and security benefits of AI. We need a balanced, pragmatic approach:

• Invest in AI research and development: We need to continue investing heavily in RD for a research agenda that is as robust and diverse as possible. That includes investing in basic research, government-civil RD partnerships, and leading joint initiatives with industry and academia.
• Build a strong AI talent pipeline: We need to build a strong pipeline of AI talent, from students to researchers to practitioners. This means investing in STEM education, creating AI-specific training programs, and attracting and retaining top talent worldwide.
• Foster a culture of responsible AI development: Our AI industry needs to develop best practices and standards for AI development that reduce bias and increase transparency and accountability. This includes testing models and algorithms for unintended bias and keeping AI applications visible. It also includes finding new ways to protect intellectual property while giving the public advance notice and a venue to express and explore concerns before AI products are deployed, at least until a rhythm of trust is established.
• Targeted AI regulation: Policymakers should work with industry and experts to develop rational, targeted regulations for specific AI risks and challenges – and then apply them appropriately in such a way as to minimize the stifling of breakthroughs or risk-reward innovation. Many regulations already exist for systems and processes that AI is being applied to - expecting AI to meet, if not exceed, legacy regulation is a reasonable start.
• Enable public understanding of AI: We need to work to improve public understanding of what AI is and its benefits and risks. That includes conducting robust AI literacy programs, increasing the visibility of existing AI systems and solutions, and opening up the dialogue between the AI industry and the public.
• Collaborate internationally: We need to advance these programs across the world – AI is a global technology that will, in many (though not all) cases, require global input, cooperation and support. International agreements and norms already enable everything from aircraft flights to protecting marine turtles, demonstrating that AI common denominators need not be abandoned to hype or framed in fear.

In the US, the road forward is to start engaging positively with the AI revolution, addressing the power it has bestowed upon us, and unlocking its benefits for everyone. What we can do today with AI, and what we can do tomorrow with newer, more powerful AI tools, is limited only by our imagination. We hold the future of AI in our hands. Our laws and policies shape it. An AI-powered future is inevitable. We can choose to lean into it in ways that lead to empowerment, broadly shared prosperity and human enhancement. Let us turn AI into our friend and upgrade humanity.

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