Things would get a lot worse as the


halfway point of the course approached. With a severe weather front expected


with gusts over 70kt, the three trailing sailors had agreed to talk every three hours. At the first informal sched McGuckin reported he had lost his mizzen mast when the first system hit. Another three hours later and McGuckin could not be raised. Slats explains. ‘Worried, I called Don


[McIntyre] on the satphone. He told me that at least 65-70kt was coming down the track and that Gregor had now rolled and lost his mainmast as well. I was going fast, three reefs in the main and storm jib, but when the front hit 30 minutes later I was hit by a monster wave that damaged my Aries self-steering and smashed my storm boards. ‘Now there was a metre of water in the


boat and I was beam on to the waves. Ohpen was on her side. Eventually she popped, or lumbered, back up but it was a pretty worrying few minutes. ‘I quickly jammed in a new storm board


and was manually pumping – and praying – for a long time before the electric pumps could do anything useful. In that time we were knocked down twice more. My HF radio was also out of action


again but in the middle of it all I had got another satphone message from Don asking me to go back for Tomy – who had also now been dismasted and sounded like he was injured. ‘But before I could do anything else I had


to save my own boat. I went on deck and got the boat stern-on to the waves. It was pitch black blowing 70kt and the seas were huge. The sound of breaking waves was like a train. I was tossed over the side to the end of my tether the first time the boat was laid down, then it came up with such force I was thrown back violently into the cock- pit. At that point I thought, heh, these prayers really work, so I decided to stick at it!


‘But in the darkness I was not steering the


boat well and if I was to make the repairs I needed then I would have to get the self- steering working again. It was dangerous, hanging over the stern in such big seas, but somehow I got everything going reasonably well and things began to stabilise. ‘When dawn broke I checked with race


HQ and was told that others would get to Tomy faster than I could, so I should sail on.’ A French fisheries patrol vessel later rescued the two Golden Globe sailors. ‘All through the race I worked hard to


improve my performance especially in lighter weather, doing a lot more hand steering than I’d expected. For one 10-day period underneath Australia I hardly slept, trying to keep her moving. It was frustrat- ing, but the positive was I did learn how to sail the boat better in the light. Even so, the high-pressure system cost me 1,000 miles in my initial effort to catch Jean-Luc.’ Up ahead was VDH who continues the


story. ‘In the Pacific Mark was regularly gaining on me and to save some distance I


38 SEAHORSE


Not a great look for rounding Cape Horn but Jean-Luc Van Den Heede pulled it off and then carefully made his way back to Les Sables just fast enough to do the job


was trying to sail back down to the latitude of Cape Horn during a big storm. ‘Conditions were strong: 10-12m waves


and westerly wind of 50-60kt. It was night, and I was sleeping. I had closed up the boat, preparing for a knockdown, because the seas were very rough. ‘I woke up on the roof, Matmut was


knocked flat, actually between 120-140° from the vertical. I was too beam-on to the wind and seas, perhaps 100-120°. Had I been more downwind I don’t think it would have happened. ‘But my rigging was spaghetti. I could


not tension it. After climbing the mast to investigate I notified Race Control that the race was over for me. Then I called my wife on the satphone. I wanted to tell her what had happened rather than for her to find out through the media. I wanted her to know that I was not in danger and that I was going to Chile. ‘Climbing the mast a second time, I


could see it was damaged beyond repair with a big hole and a tear where the shroud attachments had ripped through the mast wall… But of course this means that it must be replaced anyway! So there is no cost in me continuing to race on to Les Sables with lashings on the mast and rigging, knowing that if I dismast I can make a jury rig and continue. So I decided to keep racing… but then I was penalised for using my satphone! ‘So with a lot of lashings and using all


the spare rope I could find I rounded Cape Horn as gently as possible and picked my way up the South Atlantic. I had to be very careful on port tack when I always used as little sail as possible.’ By now the race had also lost its only


woman entrant. Susie Goodall, 29, from Falmouth, was in fourth place, 2,000nm west of Cape Horn, when she too was hit by 60kt winds. Her self-steering gave up


and she was forced to trail a sea anchor and head off downwind under storm jib. She was below deck when her boat


DHL Starlightwas pitchpoled, taking a lot of water below decks and with the rig swept away. Goodall was rescued by the cargo ship Tian Fu which delivered her to Punta Arenas in Chile. Ahead the drama continued between


Van Den Heede and Slats. VDH explained: ‘Although I was forced to sail conservatively with the damaged rig I fought hard to hold off Mark up the Atlantic; I had lost another 400nm after serving my 18-hour satphone penalty and then getting stuck in the Doldrums! ‘While our distances to the finish closed


to less than 60 miles at one stage I was generally 300-400 miles north of him as he was pushing out more to the east. But in the North Atlantic it is an advantage when you are further north because you can catch the low-pressure systems that sweep in from the west.’ Slats: ‘I certainly did sail too far out to


the east! It looked great as the gap to that finish line got down to 50 miles, but I was further south and sailed smack into a high pressure that cost me any chance I had.’ VDH arrived back in Les Sables after


211d 23h at sea, the oldest sailor to win a round-the-world race and 100 days ahead of Knox-Johnston’s time. Slats arrived two and a half days later…


‘Having finished this race in second, my respect grows even more for both Robin [Knox-Johnston], who 50 years ago sailed without radio or self-steering for three- quarters of the race, and for Jean-Luc who won this with his meticulous preparation. ‘Plus some handy experience from five


previous laps…’ The second edition of this intriguing


mix of adventure and competitive contest is scheduled for 2022. The next Golden Globe will also see the introduction of a second class of new-build steel one-design yachts, loosely based on the original Suhaili, which will offer a more reliable route into the event for those without the experience or resources to prepare an existing long-keeled design. The other winner of the 2018-2019 race


was of course Les Sables d’Olonne, quick to grab hosting rights when there was not enough support forthcoming from any of the English ports approached. ‘And the good news for 2022,’ said Don McIntyre, ‘is that we are already in negotiations with Les Sables d’Olonne Agglomeration for them to host the next event, which will give them two pretty interesting solo events running two years apart…’ And while the big crowds that turned


out to welcome back the little fleet of Golden Globe ‘survivors’ did not quite match the tens of thousands who regularly greet the Vendée Globe finishers, they were still an order of magnitude bigger than any crowd that turns out anywhere else in the world at the finish of a sailboat race. France still has it licked.


q


GILLES MARTIN-RAGET


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