The latest race got underway yesterday. Flick through the photos and check out the rigs. There are some seriously over-complicated headsail arrangements there. The rig I would have selected would be boat number 7 with an Aries.

www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=500603342075277&set=pcb.500607248741553

Thanks for reminding us...Some great pics there. What about Mark Sinclairs Coconut no.88 from Adelaide...The Best State. Ha..
Of course he has an Airies !!!
His head sail setup looks good...
How do we follow this race closely?
Mark rejoined the last race in November 2021, after having to pull out of the last race, due to running out of drinking water..He is certainly keen to complete this one..

Here is a boat tour



I like the idea of a triple headsail arrangement for a race boat. It allows you to have a good amount of sail up in lots of conditions without much effort. It is similar to what the Vendee boats do so it is well proven and should allow sailors to keep the boat well driven without having to do sail changes.

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BeamReach said..
Thanks for reminding us...Some great pics there. What about Mark Sinclairs Coconut no.88 from Adelaide...The Best State. Ha..
Of course he has an Airies !!!
His head sail setup looks good...
How do we follow this race closely?
Mark rejoined the last race in November 2021, after having to pull out of the last race, due to running out of drinking water..He is certainly keen to complete this one..

Marks rig is fine too. The winner of the last event won because he managed to fly a spinnaker the longest and also had an interesting twin headsail set off a single foil. This is a downhill slide for long keel yachts with long periods of light airs once you get out of the Southern ocean!
Facebook is the easiest way to follow it then links to the GG webpage. It seems one of the competitors might have contracted Covid and is not feeling all that flash.

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"Damien Guillou called Race Control this evening at 9:11 pm local time to report a problem with his Hydrovane self steering gear. While negotiating a 30-knot front in 3 to 4 metre waves, he noticed a movement in his windvane rudder threatening the attachment of the blade to the transom of his Rustler 36 PRB.

Damien, who is not in danger, and not requiring assistance is heaving to for the night, his Rustler 36 behaving well in the heavy seas, and is considering his options for repair, as he can no longer use his wind vane in these conditions without risking it being torn off."
3 yachts with technical problems already. The Hydrovanes were very reliable in the last race. This might be a difficult job to fix at sea.

Lots of action in the Golden Globe race. Edward Walentynowicz has decided to retire. Damien Guillou is back in Les Sables d'Olonne after the bracket which holds the Hydrovane self steering gear on the stern broke. The Hydrovane advertising makes a lot of noise about how it makes an excellent emergency rudder but it's a real liability when the bracket breaks!
Details here.
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=504507935018151&set=pcb.504509428351335

Scroll through the photos.

Some quality photos this morning.
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=516205070515104&set=pcb.516210940514517

The Rustler 36 Skippers will be the ones to watch. Kirsten Neusch?fer is an interesting Lady and who worked for Skip Novak. Very skilled and technically meticulous and a lot of Southern Ocean experience like Jean Luc VDH. Who knows, the Southern Ocean breaks everything and everyone's plans.

Link to article with pics.

www.yachtingmonthly.com/boat-events/golden-globe-race/it-was-a-bad-decision-by-the-skipper-guy-de-boer-on-the-grounding-which-leaves-him-out-of-the-golden-globe-race-89474

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Ramona said..
Some quality photos this morning.
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=516205070515104&set=pcb.516210940514517

Glory what a set of sails - the set, the detailing...........trying to find the sail maker with that insignia as below - cannot - anyone know? Not that I am going to buy from them just interested.

Huge experience and competence there with Damien, lots of other details in the rig and systems to take in............

www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=515998257202452&set=a.123500366452245

Those wind vane steering systems look like a serious piece of kit.

PRB... Certainly some well crafted sails there.
Dodger looks the biz for keeping the weather out, but a bit bent over operating the winches.
What on earth are all the rivets on the mast doing?

Those wind vane steering systems look like a serious piece of kit.

Yep, there sure are. And the can steer the best of sailor straight onto the rocks.


Guy deBoer (USA) crashes into rocks at night on the north coast of Fuerteventura, Las Palmas in the Canaries, his yacht now stranded but he is safe. Salvage under investigation.

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garymalmgren said..
Those wind vane steering systems look like a serious piece of kit.

Yep, there sure are. And the can steer the best of sailor straight onto the rocks.


Guy deBoer (USA) crashes into rocks at night on the north coast of Fuerteventura, Las Palmas in the Canaries, his yacht now stranded but he is safe. Salvage under investigation.

Not the problem of the self steering gear. It's the "gates" the competitors have to pass through which has them sailing close to land using sextants and dead reckoning. Couple of retirements already and I'm sure we will see more. The gates are there this race for promotion purposes but it's forcing sailors to forego good seamanship.

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p3p4p5 said..
The Rustler 36 Skippers will be the ones to watch. Kirsten Neusch?fer is an interesting Lady and who worked for Skip Novak. Very skilled and technically meticulous and a lot of Southern Ocean experience like Jean Luc VDH. Who knows, the Southern Ocean breaks everything and everyone's plans.

Tapio is sailing an SS36 which is faster than a Rustler 36. Not keen on his choice of headsails but he has done the race previously and I'm confident he knows what he is doing.


"Tapio Lehtinen will be campaigning a Benello Gaia 36, a Sparkman & Stephens design that won the first One Ton Cup in 1965. A long keeled forerunner to the Nautor Swan 36, "

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Ramona said..

garymalmgren said..
Those wind vane steering systems look like a serious piece of kit.

Yep, there sure are. And the can steer the best of sailor straight onto the rocks.


Guy deBoer (USA) crashes into rocks at night on the north coast of Fuerteventura, Las Palmas in the Canaries, his yacht now stranded but he is safe. Salvage under investigation.

Not the problem of the self steering gear. It's the "gates" the competitors have to pass through which has them sailing close to land using sextants and dead reckoning. Couple of retirements already and I'm sure we will see more. The gates are there this race for promotion purposes but it's forcing sailors to forego good seamanship.

Dead reckoning?? I had to look it up..
A navigation term, which I now understand, or it can be used in biology, to describe the processes by which animals update their estimates of position or heading..

You always learn a lot on this site.!!

Interesting Arnaud's mainsail leech reefing eyes are low friction rings webbed to the conventional pressed in eyes so sitting behind the sail.
The eyes in my sail are rubbish and the source of a lot of friction so I was toying with the idea of stripping the lines to dynema at this area.

Interesting review here.

goldengloberace.com/trade-wind-twist-for-golden-globe-and-south-atlantic-high-creating-challenges/?fbclid=IwAR0SZo-tABPoYYeTvGX65Jy09vC1xulyov8mKurk9_OxmYr1DzUGNN7bUN4

Thanks for keeping us, up to date. An interesting read and very challenging.
Cheers...

Damien Guillou (FRA) has broken his Hydrovane self steering gears main shaft. The shaft which is made of stainless steel has broken just above the rudder. He has a replacement shaft onboard.

goldengloberace.com/damien-guillou-breaks-windvane-and-simon-curwen-stuck-up-the-mast-in-ggr/

Check out the courses taken by Tomy, Lehlnen and Curwen.

goldengloberace.com/live-tracker/

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garymalmgren said..
Check out the courses taken by Tomy, Lehlnen and Curwen.

goldengloberace.com/live-tracker/

Tapio is looking good!

Tapio is looking good!

I'm barracking for Abhilash Tomy.

Go Kirsten!!
Plenty of southern ocean experience ... and I would love to see a channel cutter type win..

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MuttonBird said..
Go Kirsten!!
Plenty of southern ocean experience ... and I would love to see a channel cutter type win..

I think it's the year of the S&S36 [the old one]. Tapio came last in the last race in this boat. I think he has his sh** in a pile this time and even though the headsail set up seems over the top to me as a fair weather sailor I'm sure he learnt a lot from the last race.

Golden Globe Race to the Cape Town Gate gets very interesting (sail-world.com)

This is not good news! Tapio is sailing the S&S36 with the 3 furling headsails.

UPDATE : TAPIO DISTRESS.... Tapio is communicating with the YB3 Tracker-Texting device from the life raft..The YB3 tracker is giving positions with the EPIRB and PLB. He has no Glasses, so hard to read and send messages. He has the GRAB BAG. He is in his survival Suit. Asterias went down stern first in 5 minutes. Press release shortly with more information. #GGR2022

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Ramona said..
This is not good news! Tapio ...

Other wording says yacht flooded from stern with water up to deck level in 5 minutes. No mention of a collision or being pooped so cockpit drain conduits, a sea cock or stern gland would ordinarily be primary suspects unless perhaps wind vane steering, mounts pulled free leaving holes.

In his initial interview before the race he speaks of all through hulls going through a small area below the cockpit with a watertight bulkhead at either end and also mentions having more water tight bulkheads than required as well as having a miniscule cockpit well.
The rudder post does however come up through the hull which I think is unusual in this race and for full keel yachts . Cockpit drain plumbing, stern gland and the rudder post conduit may not be considered through hulls but in any event you would have thought that the multiple bulkheads in the stern of the boat would have prevented sufficient Ingress of water size to sink the boat if I either of these failed.

Are there keel bolts?

With the yacht at the bottom it is possible we will never know.

goldengloberace.com/tapio-lehtinen-distress-activation-in-the-golden-globe-race/?fbclid=IwAR1awmHrGRHZDwnY-hKP2dO9T_dFX5OTHOxWfz8Lltz2DfR8B0lrKlz7Sh8

He got rescued by Kirsten who sailed him to the bulk carrier. He's safe.

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Madmouse said..
He got rescued by Kirsten who sailed him to the bulk carrier. He's safe.

At least with this one we might get to hear what actually occurred or at least a best guess. Sounds like a skin fitting failure from my armchair. Rudder post could have given away too I suppose but long keelers tend to protect the post.
goldengloberace.com/tapio-is-safe-and-sound/?fbclid=IwAR2Dq_SZo4TF2dNsp_v8jInEyEX2hKnbvTSB1UdCen42_aIljWf82AMTJK0