What the organisers learned

‘i was surprised at the number of boats that lost rigs. i thought we might lose a few but not that many,’ commented the golden globe race (ggr) chairman, don Mcintyre, who admits the speed of the fleet also took him by surprise, having calculated the fastest boats would take around 220 days.

Mcintyre believes the concept of the 2018 race was a success, but accepts there are ‘plenty’ of lessons to be learnt from the event. he knew the gps co-ordinates on the ggr website tracker would be an issue as it was public information, which the skippers were allowed to receive. this was eventually banned during the 2018 event and this ban will stay for 2022.

he described ham radio as another ‘double-edged sword’, especially when coupled with weather discussions.

‘a lot of people didn’t understand what weather routing was, and we had a situation with the public thinking people were cheating,’ he explained. Mcintyre stressed that personalised weather forecasting, which is allowed, is different to private weather forecasting and weather routing. he considers weather routing to be the use of private weather information and skippers being given directions to find the best conditions.

For 2022, skippers can only use a registered, licensed maritime-approved hf single side Band (ssb) radio, with time penalties imposed for breaches of the international telecommunication Union (itu) rules and regulations association with maritime radio. discussions about weather over the radio with anyone other than mariners at sea or between entrants will also be restricted to receiving the global Maritime distress and safety system (gmdss) forecasts.

Mcintyre dismissed the point raised by many of the 2018 skippers that gmdss was not available.

‘some skippers didn’t use their radios well enough. all of the weather reports are transmitted on multiple frequencies at set times in the day for every section of the world’s oceans. sometimes you receive it, sometimes you can’t and that is the reality. if they do their research they will be able to make contact with lots of good people like the Pacific Cruisers’ nets and the Caribbean net,’ he stressed.

Mcintyre said they had advised 2018 skippers when the weather was ‘anything over 35-40 knots which looked a bit iffy’, and that a team would come up with the advice. this group included sailors like Jesse Martin (who in 1999 became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo, non-stop, and unassisted), the ggr assistant director dave Pryce, French professional sailor lionel regnier, and a professional meteorologist.

the ggr has no independent race jury, with decisions on penalties made by three ggr managers, and this will remain for 2022. affected skippers were also allowed to bring in an independent arbitrator, which happened in the case of Jean-luc Van den heede for how he navigated during his 18-hour time penalty.

arbitrators will not be bought in for intentional rules breaches, which Mcintyre argues happened in the case of Mark slats, who was given a 36-hour time penalty for improper satellite phone use, and direct outside assistance from his manager dick Koopmans following an argument between Mcintyre and Koopmans about weather advice for Biscay. Mcintyre told Yachting Monthly that Jean-luc Van den heede, who had already won, was also bought in to the decision on slats’ penalty.

golden globe race organisers asked sir robin Knox-johnston to consider the lessons for sailing small yachts in extreme conditions during the 2018 race. the report is available at: www.yachtingmonthly.com/eventshome/golden-globe-race.