The original solo man
FIFTY years ago last week, renowned English yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston in his yacht Suhaili, along with eight other solo sailors, set sail from Les Sables-d’Oionne in France in the inaugural Sunday Times Golden Globe Race.
Knox-Johnston was the only one to complete the race and thus became the first man to sail non-stop around the world. He is best known in recent years as the founder of the Clipper Round the World Race and has been a regular visitor to Hobart, competing in several Sydney-Hobart races.
To commemorate that first non-stop circumnavigation race in 1968, a fleet of 18 “retro” yachts set sail from Les Sables-d’Oionne on July 1 in the 2018 Golden Globe Race. A week later the leading French yachts were off the coast of Morocco, heading south in the Atlantic for the Cape of Good Hope.
The course is around the allowed. Thus, they are sailing without the benefit of satellitebased navigation aids, plotting their positions by sextants and traditional celestial navigation methods.
While each yacht has aboard an emergency kit of modern communication and navigation equipment, the rules of the race prohibit their use unless in a dire situation. So no GPS, satellite phone, internet or weather routing.
However, they will be visible to the outside world via AIS and Yellow Brick tracking (similar to that used in the Sydney-Hobart yacht race).
Among them is a replica of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston’s Suhaili with the others all designed before 1988, stoutlybuilt and with a similar hull length.
They have full-length keels with rudders attached to the trailing edge, and a minimum design displacement of 6200kg.