Ocean racing seems to have been taken over by boats made entirely of carbon fiber, costing slightly more than their weight in gold, as well being as festooned with foils, articulating keels and every high-tech whiz-bang device that millions of dollars can buy. There is something very appealing to the idea of reverting back to a simpler time with simpler boats and gear.
The current Golden Globe Race is attempting to do just that. The Golden Globe racers all set out to race solo non-stop around the world in production boats equipped with only gear available in the first Golden Globe of 50 years ago. That means specifically: no GPS, chart plotters, electronic wind instruments, electric autopilots, electronic log, iPhone, satellite phones, digital cameras, computers, cd players, pocket calculators electronic clocks and watches, water makers, carbon fiber, Kevlar, spectra etc… so it is back to film cameras, cassette tapes, sextants, wind up clocks, trailing logs and Dacron sails, wind vanes, and typewriters.
The Golden Globe Race is roughly half over. How has the “retro race” worked out so far?
The results are mixed. Of the 18 starters, only 8 are still actively in the race. What has gone wrong? Are there lessons to be learned? Three lessons seem clear.
1. Older is not always better.
Tried and true old school-designs can be wonderful but are not always better than newer technology and materials. Many modern offshore sailboats use electro-hydraulic auto-pilots powered by solar cells, which was not available in 1968. The Golden Globe racers use self-steering wind vanes. Vanes do not require electrical power, but they can be complicated and are, relatively speaking, fragile. Of the first seven entrants to withdraw from the race, three left due to wind vane steering gear problems.
Likewise, one of the boats abandoned after being struck by a serious storm in the Southern Ocean happened to be a replica of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston’s famous yacht Suhaili in which he won the original Golden Globe race in 1968.
2. Knowledge is power and safety
The Golden Globe racers can get weather forecasts over single-sideband radio, but do not have access to weather routing. Two boats were dismasted and another damaged when they were caught in a nasty storm in the Southern Ocean. There is no guarantee that they would have avoided the weather entirely if they had access to weather routing and satellite communications, but they would have had a better chance of avoiding the reported 80-knot winds and high seas.
3. When it all goes wrong, technology is essential
When one of the two sailboats was dismasted, the captain suffered a serious back injury. When that happened the sat communicators and GPS were broken out. Because the rescuers knew the damaged vessel’s exact position they were able to rescue the sailor withing a few days. If the rate was truly “retro”, without the high tech communications and satellite positioning, the outcome could have been very different.
Seeking a Middle Ground
There must be some middle ground between the multi-million dollar carbon fiber sleds and the “retro facing” without GPS, solar panels or weather routing. Paper charts and sextants are important backups to chart plotters but they are not necessarily better, just as barometers are useful for predicting the weather but weather routing can, at least potentially, save lives.
I think it is clear that while “retro racing” has an emotional appeal, it has definite limitations. The sea is a dangerous place and there is nothing wrong with using the best gear and equipment available.
Really, taking on the ocean as a recreational or sporting activity at any level is to join an all-volunteer navy featuring more or less gratuitously chosen hazards and risk.
I generally hate board games, claim they’re an irrational waste of time and effort when real-world problems offer enjoyable and useful problem-solving, but then I go sailing for no good reason. I have to admit that sitting at a table and participating in an imaginary world of arbitrary rules and ephemeral excitement while accomplishing nothing useful is a more sensible choice than sailing, if I’m thinking about my safety and that of others who sail with me.
No professional mariner will be needed to put their own lives (and charterer/owner/etc. money) at risk to rescue participants in a game of Monopoly gone wrong, but they readily do so for people with nothing better to do than tie one arm behind their backs,go to sea and get into serious trouble. Rescuers know full well how their time is being wasted. Yet for the most part rescuers seem happy to do so; there’s some kind of sport even in a rescue as we can see in the elation following a successful recovery.
There’s no reasoning this out. We are very strange creatures.
Quote: There is no guarantee that they would have avoided the weather entirely if they had access to weather routing and satellite communications, but they would have had a better chance of avoiding the reported 80-knot winds and high seas. /quote
If you listen to the conversation that the chap who was injured had with Australian weather forecaster before the incident he was told that (not the exact words) there was a blow coming but nothing he couldn’t handle.
So… you can’t predict freak waves and weather routing wouldn’t have helped.
Being able to go faster than the weather systems does seem to have a plus side providing you don’t hit any flotsam or jetsam at high speed.
As I am a poor man I will stick with my Nic 32 and stay out of the southern ocean.
To see if a race could be done in the late 1960’s technology is ludicrist. I was going to say comendable, yet as a society that of which was in the world in the 1970’s has forever changed. We cant go back to what was for a challenge. As the seas wont go back to what was either.
If the want to have a race of what it was like back then that is nice. Yet dont take away the safety gear that allows people to do their job. Solar panels for fresh water should have been allowed as well as the ability of auto navigation. Even an tablet would have helped.
Nope, have this race only as a class of race if people want to try it. Yet it needs to have the warning that “99% of you probably wont make it with these limitations”. Tho there had best be an award of twice the value of a new boat at the end. Especially where this could be a life ending race.
I speak as a Cape Horner who has been there in the Southern oceans three times each time in Square rigged sailing ships 1991, 2015 and 2018. It is tough no matter how it is tried the sea has to be respected at all times as a tough mistress, I am most proud of the earliest rounding I made in SOREN LARSEN 1991, when we used single sideband radio, weather fax was the only other outside contact in the 45 days it took us to get to the Horn from Auckland, we hung on to contact with Kerry, Kerry Radio until the signal ran out otherwise we were on our own. EUROPA 2015 was difficult when we went down from the east a rare occurrence for a square rigger these days we were off the pitch of the Horn for 13 days after a wind shift of 110 degrees in 10 seconds decided Antarctica was where we should go and not west as we needed to get to 80 degrees before making north, we were hove to for 4 days laying in troughs awaiting a change. TENACIOUS 2018 was mostly easier again out of Auckland but even then with all the up to date weather we at one point found ourselves being blown way north when we needed south east. When Cape Horner member Charlie Crawshaw was down there in the southern ocean some years ago prior to 1990 in REVELLER a Nicholson 32 the first of her type to go into those Horn waters he and his two companions sat down below clinging on to whatever they could playing board games and Dominoes when it got tough. Before sailing Charlie had filled the cockpit of his boat more used to being seen in the Mediterranean with polystyrene to throw off water perhaps he was either foolish or lucky but he made it so proving that a Nic 32 could go anywhere. At Cape Horner`s we are always on the lookout for more intrepid members. Of the present group down in those waters Cdr Tomy
the unfortunate Indian entrant is already one of our members, I understand his injuries are sever and muscular without any breakages. Perhaps the Indian Navy will be successful in rescuing his and Gregor`s boats.
Chris R
Simply put and well said, Rick.