THE VOYAGE OF MADMEN – GOLDEN GLOBE RACE 2018 #official #ggr #documentary 98 MINS

In 1968, The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race was the first ever around-the-world solo yacht race.
Known at the time as a voyage for madmen, lives were forever changed – yachts sank, a suicide occurred and of the nine entries only one man finished – Sir Robin Knox-Johnston becoming the first person ever to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the globe.

No other race has occurred like it in half a century.

The Voyage of Madmen is the story of Don McIntyre’s 50 year anniversary recreation of the infamous race and his quest to attract amateur sailors to compete in small boats, taking on the perils of the sea entirely against the odds. It’s a race without modern technological aids where actually surviving a non-stop lap of the world is the achievement. Of the 18 solo sailors to depart France in 2018 – five solitary skippers cross the finish line – the final finisher spending 322 days alone at sea.

This is the story of the longest sporting event in history. A display of brutal individualism by characters longing for a by-gone era who are hell-bent on recreating the longest, loneliest and most gruelling sports event on the planet.

This film is an independent production funded entirely by Don & Jane – “McIntyre Adventure”…we have not yet been able to sell it to mainstream media or TV ..only a few hire and buy sales…For the past 10 Years we have invested heavily in supporting adventure ..the Golden Globe, Ocean Globe and Mini Globe Races and the ALMA Class Globe 580 one design mini. All this basically without major sponsors or external funding. We withheld the public release of this amazing film for two years , hoping to sell it for mass distribution…We are still trying!….but with the fourth edition of the McIntyre GGR starting Sept 6 2026 again from Les Sables d’Olonne and knowing many people around the world would be inspired watching this amazing human story, we cannot hide it any longer…Thanks to all the friends, volunteers and partners who helped make adventure and film possible.PLEASE TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS about it…….we hope you enjoy the film.

If you would like to support our adventures, please follow , subscribe, comment and share 🙂 ..it helps a lot! THANKS!…The 2018 edition of the GGR will go down in history for many reasons. This is a tribute to the 18 sailors who risked all to follow a simple dream!” – Don & Jane

An Ocean Frontiers and Imajica Media Production

Featuring Sir Robin Knox-Johnston · Alex Carozzo · Don McIntyre · Jane Zhou · Barry Pickthall · Jean-Luc Van Den Heed · Mark Slats · Uku Randmaa · Istvan Kopar · Tapio Lehtinen · Mark Sinclair · Abhilash Tomy · Gregor McGuckin

Post Supervisor: Gary Woodyard
Sound Supervisor: Ian MacWilliams
Re-Recording Mixer: Dale Warren
Edited by Jesse Martin
Produced by Don McIntyre
Written and Directed by Jesse Martin

Runtime: 98m – Long play 112mins version only available on GGR Vimeo
Release Date: June 5, 2023

Available for streaming in June 2023

www.GoldenGlobeRace.com

In 1968 The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race was the first ever yacht race around the world Only one man finished, Robin Knox-Johnston became the first person to sail solo, nonstop and unasisted around the world. 50 years later, 18 solo sailors set out to commemerate that event. 5 will finish. The attraction of the Southern Ocean is it’s a cold, miserable place, and if you want to take on the toughest challenge that’s it. The waves were breaking breaking off by the wind so it was just foam in the water lots of foam. I don’t do this for disappearing I love life. Delighted to meet you all here in Les Sables d’Olonne for the Golden Globe Race coming to you live from this mythic event even if it is not necessarily very well known Somehow I found myself Hi. Well it’s taken just 9 weeks to sign up 24 men and 1 woman from 15 countries to be part of history. We’re going to recreate the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race I’m Don McIntyre and I’m in the Golden Globe Most of the events are very commercial and corporate, Don is just passion! What’s your story Captain Coconut? Umm.. well, apparently we’re here to sail around the world ! Oh Tapio Tapio What’s it like to be here even without an engine? It’s fantastic, I’m a sailor I’m not so interested in engines What Don has done is he’s shifted the focus completely from technology and money back to the individual who’s going to be sailing What’s the objective, are you in for a cruise? just the adventure or you want to win? I’m going to do everything to do as good as possible There’ll be people who will say the boats arn’t safe because they don’t go fast enough. Do you have to spend $1 milliom to buy a 60-footer that does all this fancy stuff? Does the little guy not go? There’s no way! What do you think about the adventure that is about to leave your father? I think it’s going to be a good experience for him. Just look at the devastation ! So you strive hard to achieve a rescue with the least impact. It just folds over and that position goes straight into the middle of it I can’t get the boat to stay pointing down wind on its own And this is when everything becomes so clear What is important in life. But at the end of the day, everyone will have to answer their own question on how much is a human life worth and what’s it all about? Is there a hole in the hull? The boat is, ahh … The only thing that’s left is a hull. I don’t know how to make it prayer I’m not religious or anything. But please get me through this one. You are a small person in that big ocean, and you just feel, free, very free. We don’t need millions to do sailboat racing. We don’t need all that modern technology to fulfill a dream. When you say there was only one winner, well there was only one winnner for people who wanted to come first. He’s put his whole life on the line to make it happen. If anybody’s living a dream in this adventure, it’s Don. Being on Suhaili with my good friend Sir Robin Knox-Johnston about to start the race. It was surreal, it was a dream. It was as if I was looking down on the boat thinking this is unbelievable. Look where I am. This is the… 50th anniversary of the Golden Globe Race. It was the most incredible moment that you could ever imagine. The Voyage of Madmen Golden Globe Race 2018 The Sunday Times Golden Globe will be awarded to the first non-stop, singlehanded circumnavigator of the world. It really is a voyage for madmen, no fuel, food, water or equipment may be taken onboard after the start. I can remember someone coming up to me when I was getting my boat ready, I was in the Navy at the time, and saying – Are you this guy who’s gonna… thinks he can sail solo, non-stop around the world? I said I’m going to try it. The sort of boat I wanted for an around-the-world voyage would have to be seaworthy and easy to handle. She would also have to be robust and uncomplicated. It was in the ’70s when I started to read the books. And then you started to hear about the race, the Golden Globe, and Sir Robin and you were just gobsmacked by this guy that went around. I did not see how anything could stand up to this sort of continual punishment.. …the wind howling a lullaby in the rigging… If I could get her around to lie with the sea she might be alright. And the story of… losing his windvane and nearly sinking. It was just like an epic feat. I went back on deck and stood watching the sea for a while, it’s character was slowly changing. He’d done something which was incredible, and I wanted to be him. It was not a done deal that anybody would achieve this, and in fact, out of the 9 entries, only one finished. The Salute! Day 312 and Robin Knox-Johnston and Suhaili have sailed non-stop, around the world. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. I wanted to get out on the ocean, so I started building my first boat when I was 18 and it was a concrete replica of Suhaili because already Robin Knox-Johnston had become my hero. In many ways it’s hard to believe we’re actually doing this 50 years later and Robin is there, fit as a fiddle, 50 years later Welcome to Falmouth. Lovely to be back. No one really knows what’s going to happen the world’s never seen anything like it before and I just want to thank Robin for being such a friend… to the race. Starting in the Northern hemisphere, sailors must first head South, to the Canary Islands, to deliver letters and film. Then into the South Atlantic catching the Westerly winds beneath the Cape of Good Hope and across the entire Indian Ocean. A second film drop at Hobart, Tasmania is a brief chance to see humans after months alone. Then back out to sea, deep into the Southern Ocean to clear Cape Horn. The final dash North up the Atlantic Ocean concludes an around the world voyage of some 30,000 nautical miles solo, non-stop and unassisted. There’s only about 220 people who’ve done it, and 6-700 people have been into space now. So you are taking on something that’s… pretty unusual, and there’s a good reason that, it’s tough. I had this feeling that we would be lucky to get 9 entrants. The same as 50 years before. And he knows who opens the press release and how many elements they open, and so on… He rang me 24 hours later and said – Don you’re not going to believe this. We had 20 within 2 weeks. That was the extraordinary thing and then it just snowballed. 30,000 miles, non-stop, singlehanded… and this isn’t exactly a state-of-the-art racing yacht. There’s no GPS, no radar, no electric autopilot. It’s a mental challenge at the end of the day, because it’s so long. You’re navigating with a sextant, for music you have to use a cassette tape player. Hi my name is Shane Freeman, I’m an Australian and I’ve never done anything this challenging before. I was certainly aware of the risk and the race itself has got safety requirements which… are sensible, but they’re pretty eye-watering. Should we need to use a life raft, we take the grab bag with us, we take some additional water with us, and the rest of the safety gear is packed in the life raft. We needed to demonstrate we we could sail with a jury rig, in the event that you lose your mast. I used spinnaker poles. We had people who wanted to also build a boat from scratch so we thought, okay, Woudn’t it be great to have replicas of Suhaili, Robin Knox-Johnston’s boat built in teak, in India. All of a sudden we’ve got one. May peace and blessing from God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, decend upon this boat… and upon all who board her. I think the underlying reason for every competitor is… the human tendency, to… reach out for something that’s far bigger than themselves. at least attempt it Rather than put my boat on a boat and take it to the start line, I chose sailing the Southern Ocean under Cape Horn from Melbourne, was going to be the best proving ground possible for both myself and the boat. I headed off in December of 2016 I was feeling very well prepared I’d spent 18 months preparing the boat then on day 70… I heard a… a very very loud sound I could sense the boat was upside down, and then it rapidly righted, Made a decision… whether or not I could… jury-rig the boat, and if I could jury-rig it, where would I… where would I head to? And so I made a decision to… call for an evacuation. I’ve always been fascinated by when is enough, enough? when do you give up? and I thought, look if I was going to find that out… in any activity, it would be the GGR. I found it. God. The challenges really started to pour in, in terms of the scope of the event was growing, but we weren’t getting any support, so.. some hard decisions were made, and we remembered our friends in France. Well it became very clear that Don couldn’t do the race but it took us quite a bit of time. Gentle coercion in saying, there’s no way this race will happen unless you’re running it. People always making joke – Don can’t live without me. Don’s sometimes cranky when I do Google Map tell him turn too slow. But Don can’t do computer, so, even little bit problem I feel is very simple but he can’t do it, so we work with each other. So, talk about to the last days… we’ve got a hot prospect on a sponsor. I don’t know whether he’s interested in… being a supporting partner, or trying to take the title. How many days until the start? 10 days? How many days to the start, Jane Jane? I don’t know. Anyway it’s not far away. I’m very negative. I only see the bad side of the thing. Every time he’s got a new idea, I pour water on him, I say I don’t like it. I don’t like this, I don’t like that. It won’t work. I’m always say things like that. When we moved to France, boy all hell broke loose because… we were coming in unannounced very short notice to the start and the FFV got a bit upset. They must have thought we were backyard-dodgy, or something, and… started to make some very damaging statements about… … the event is full of old people, and dreamers… and it was just too dangerous. That had a big impact on the press and it really affected our ability to… … to talk credibly to sponsors. They are the French Sailing Federation, and… the Vende Globe is their baby, and… they wanted to have control over it. And Don was absolutley certain that he wasn’t going to be racing under World Sailing rules. So there was no need to pay thousands and thousands of Pounds out, just for the privilage of having the FFV’s logo on the thing. We knew it could happen, we’d already sold the house, we had options there to finance it, but the pressure was intense. Anyway, we just kept moving forward, in the end we didn’t get the big sponsor, besides our support from Les Sables d’Olonne, the total cash sponsors we got to run the race was € 35,000. So Jane and I carried the can through the whole of that. But it was exciting at the same time, we used to drive home and think – Atleast we’ve created something from nothing. The adrenaline kept it running… … every adventure we’d ever done, they’d always cost money, and… I wasn’t sailing in the race but this was a bigger adventure running the race, so we saw it as that. It was a huge personal adventure, just go for it. The French sailing media wern’t going to cover it because the FFV had washed their hands of the whole thing. They were saying – no, no ,no small thing, the Vende Globe is the big race, this is not right. So we had to win them over, and they were won over by the public. It’s sailing on the level that is kind of reachable by more everyday people, who are unable to get big sponsorship. In this age where everything is about high finance, it brings it down to pure, valuable reasons that are essentially what we go to sea and seek at sea in the first place. That’s why I think it’s just so tremendously beautiful. If I have no wind and the keep me occupied I can row the boat. The doctor told me 4 years ago that I only had 10 more months. and so Mark knew, and.. thats why he started raising money for cancer, to make cheap medicines, because cancer medicines are really expensive. And he started doing that with Rowing 4 Cancer and he collected 47,000 and now his aim is for Sailing 4 Cancer, his aim is 50,000. … in there, in there. All together… big smile. It’s all hard for everyone, we’re all on our last money. I sold my house basically to be here, you know, and that’s the things that a lot of people don’t realize. They think – oh he’s going to do a nice race. And they don’t see all the trouble to get here, you know. It’s got a bit of an amateur flavour more than a strong commercial flavour, and maybe that’s a good thing too, If you look at the original race they all struggled for sponsors. Nothing’s changed. This is a nice little gift from the fair people of Plymouth. … and it’s in it’s little box… and I shoved it in and it was at that song! It was at that song! I thought holy – moly this is good things are working out. There you go. Departure function for the GGR. It was supposed to be just the entrants and their immediate team, but – it was going to be the GGR send-off! And I’m thinking – Crikies! What are we going to do? We’ve got no money. They couldn’t work out what this bloody Aussie and Chinese person were doing there, trying to run this race with a 1960s cassette tape player, Playing… What was it? Music : Do you come from the land down under? Music: Where women glow and men plunder… Music: Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? Music: You better run, you better take cover… I had all kind of… really unique adventures… you know, I was able to connect in a very special way with the Universe. And this is when everything becomes so clear. You see clearly the important people in your life. So my love my understanding, everything becomes much stronger, and I’m hoping I can… find that peace again. How many eggs have we got left Jane Jane? Five! Okay, stack up five eggs. Go on, really load it down! Increase the stakes, okay. The romance we are seeing here is great, the public love it. But once you get out there it’s a hard, practical job, and it isn’t the time for romance, that’s gone. So on start day, July 1st the pontoon will be closed to the public. You’ll need your correct passes, it’ll be a lot of media, it’s going to be crazy. That’s the last chance you’ve got to say goodbye. My final conversation with my dearest was extended over a few months. Now they understand… Well at least, they’ve stopped asking me… maybe you will change your mind? I suppose it’s the appropriate time to say I’m pretty impressed, I mean… Everyone is coming at it from different angles and it’s a real credit to you all to get this far. We’ve now got effectively 18 entrants, in the second edition of the Golden Globe Race which is pretty amazing. I don’t know how I will feel when I come back but I do hope that I become an example for others to… Try this event, that it can be done by ordinary people. I want Palestinian people to see the Palestinian flag on a noble event and hopefully to finish a Palestinian circumnavigating the globe that would be huge! I fear of course the places where I haven’t been before like Southern Ocean, and… I feel fear, yeah Okay, you go down the river approximately 200 meters apart. And there’ll be thousands of people on the wall cheering, they’ll be waving, they’ll be blowing horns, they’ll be doing all sorts of things. It’ll be a pretty spooky moment for both the spectators and you. Things seem to be moving around I was almost in a daze or trance going down it. It felt almost unreal! I mean it was packed! Part of the motivation will also be to know what I want to do next and to share that now with her, without any doubts of the physicality of this… I’m going to return, and we will do more things. Jean Luc Van Den Heede! It was my sixth time around the world, I don’t need to prove anything, so… I had no stress when I start. You all come behind Joshua and Suhaili. This is my second race, my first race that I’m on my own. I guess the the biggest unknown is nine months alone. And I think everyone will feel it, loneliness. Suhaili will round up to starboard, and Joshua will round up to port. They will clear right out to the side here, and you can sail through and the race is underway. It was the most incredible moment, that you could ever imagine. I went right back to when I first heard of the race, you know, when I built my replica… all the things that we’re going through my mind in the minutes leading up to the start gun were just mind-boggling. If you want a sailing plan that goes out there, you can go, but you must go through between Joshua and Suhaili, in the first 5 minutes. Enjoy the ride! You should be mentally prepared for a race like this. I don’t need any preparation because I can very easily slip into that state of… solitude. In the dream I’m awake, but I’m trying to sleep. In that sleep, I need to be in a dream in which, I am in a boat which is stuck in a storm. And if I’m not in the boat I will not be able to save the boat. Seems like someone has gone to sleep! Not being a big believer in things like that that you can’t get your hands on… I saw some things that were pretty unique with the wildlife. It’s like Seaworld out here. Couldn’t be any better than this, hey? I think there must be about 40 or something. Then they’re gone. I’ve got no idea where I am at the moment… Somewhere along the Spanish coast. You try to keep the boat in motion and it takes, in this case when you have very light winds it takes a lot of effort. There were a few little teething problems, it was always going to be that, and… radios were a big one… …having trouble with radios. It never worked, even though I had people come around so I had no communications other than the VHF. No complaints so far it is better than the last one I had. Err, I mean… all points of sail, it’s holding course? A huge sadness filled me. All I wanted to do was talk to the family and see them… after 3 days. Sometimes your radio scheds and whatever… although they’re enjoyable, the danger when they get too much focus, it becomes about that, and I think the fact that you’re out of the world is a good thing, and you want to have minimal contact and as soon as you get too much contact you’re back in the world and you’ve lost the whole point of why you’re out there in the first place. I decided to sail towards La Coruña, to find a telephone. So I met this ship in the North Atlantic. Something told me that… we had more in common than just being from India so I asked him in my language… which means… – Are you from Kerala? He says yes, then we start talking and finally I ask him if he can send a message to my wife. And it’s a standard message that I pass to my wife, it’s… I am fine, how are you? And he says – Sir, congratulations! You’re wife wants to know if… I should continue with the pregnancy or not? Thank you so much for your help, channel one – six. I’m making my favorite something-something. I’ll just show it to you. Can you hear that? Popcorn! You’re going as fast as you can, and everything is under control, it’s such a reward! I think I’m finally settling into it now. As you can see… we’re flying along. I have this obsession with watching the bow go through the water, and… it’s just something that never gets old. You feel as a little piece in the big… in the big nature. Low to the water, so… singular. It’s sublime, I’d say that time begins to stand still. Here’s to many more of these! The sun… up on one side …down on the other and it becomes this big blend of pink and blue skies. There’s some nice whales around me. Unbelievable, hey! You naturally start talking about us sailing and what we are doing. And also you remind yourself nobody ever sees this. Two weeks after leaving France and 1300 miles under the keel, the first sailors begin arriving at the Canary Islands film drop. There was so many things that were new for me. Navigating with the Sextant was a big thing. When you ask your position from a ship, which is allowed, and you find out that you’re not that far off. Somehow, when you’re by yourself… I think the smile is even bigger. We were watching the hits thinking – Crikeys! There’s a lot of people watching the videos! We were getting 10-15,000 people watching the live clips, thinking – Wow, this is cool! Look after yourself, stay safe ! I’ll see you in Hobart ! Absolutely ! We were trying to film for the documentary… take photos, do Live, and all that stuff and there’d be… 3 of us and 1 would have to be driving the boat, and we’d always forget something. Poor old Mark Slats came in and we didn’t have the audio on… … he got there before us, it was just a nightmare. There’s been a few technical issues but there’s just a few of us, so… we’re… struggling on as best we can. We just let it run… thats just us, lets just do it We were never perfect. I want to get good audio, I want to get the thing-o for Jean-luc. … just pull the plug out. People started to accept the fact that yeah, I’m dyslexic and make spelling mistakes, and we don’t quite get it right all the time, but… that’s the GGR, it’s human and it’s family. Do you want to hold that one for me? You can talk in French if you like Oh shit hang on, sorry… I forgot to turn it on. Okay it’s turned on now. Okay. So you couldn’t go down below to sleep? I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t relax because I needed to see what was going on it’s just in my mind, I couldn’t let it go. So you’re comfortable now with your decision? Yeah I’ve got no choice, there’s no decision to make really, for me. I don’t want to be dismasted in the Southern Ocean, and if I sit there every night listening to it creaking, which it does, then i’ll go insane… there’s no way I’m going to do it. When Antoine arrived I was a bit surprised because it was a pretty cool boat. Even if you read ten times the book – The Long Way and all these single-handed guys… they don’t talk much about being alone. They talk about the sea, the environment, the boats… all this fancy relationship you can have at sea but they don’t talk about what’s going on inside, and that’s where you discover that it’s a huge, huge challenge. Antoine was…. really just coming to terms with what, not only what lay ahead but what he was already going through. Good morning everyone this is ummm.. a sad day for Nabil, he’s retired today, he lost his… self steering system and was hand steering last night and conditions were pretty tough. The race probably started… after the breaking of that gear. My own personal race of… 60 or 70 hours sitting at the wheel. Well it’s really come on to blow now I probably should have put that third reef in. And as I got the last sock on I threw up all over my open clothes bags. I think that is quintessential GGR you know the Atlantic legs we know sort people out thats what happened to Nabil. Great guy. Watch this space. Still in the canaries, and… Antoine has… got himself organised, had a bit of a rest stocked up on a few things and is about to… set off as our first person in the Chichester Class, so… not in the rankings for the GGR anymore, it’ll be a one-stop circumnavigation. I think it’s better to stop now. Fix everything, calm down and go again, you know …that was the deal. Thats it, no huge crowd, no huge fanfare, very personal, he’s underway again and we wish him all the luck in the world. In 1976… Francis Chichester completed the first one-stop circumnavigation, calling into Sydney on his way around the world. Any GGR sailor can make a single stop and still remain in the race under Chichester Class. Sailors who do not depart by the start date can compete in the Corozzo Class, named after Alex Carozzo who, in the 1968 Golden Globe Race, departed Cowes by the start date and sat on a mooring completing preparations before departing a week later. Starting on a different date was part of the rules. Touched a bit by Don for the purpose. The deal was leaving 3 weeks after the others. Interesting… following on for the theme of whats going on. Thats a Beaufort windvane he’s got there, and that’s exactly the same as the one Nabil had. How do you feel about being a Carozzo sailor? The first one we’ve ever had. Yeah, yeah, thats an honour… Carozzo told me personally a few days ago that we are first in the class, he said. Me and him. Goodluck mate ! Sail safe ! Francesco Cappelletti in the Carozzo Class trailed the fleet for some 2200 miles behind the leaders. 1300 miles ahead of him Antoine Cousot in Chichester Class was just leaving the Canary Islands, hot on the trail of Istvan Kopar who was having serious windvane problems. The middle of the fleet remained grouped together while the leaders were already showing bold decisions, spread out as they approached the Doldrums. Philippe Péché crossing the equator first followed closely by Mark Slats all the way out West. And Jean-luc Van den Heede crossing third and opting for a more direct route to the Cape of Good Hope. Becomes a river. Becomes a river, river, river, river The worst is to have not enough wind I suppose, because it’s very hard when you dont have wind… and you are racing. We’re supposed to be having Northerlys at the moment, but.. It’s anybodys guess where it’s coming from. I get very frustrated when the windvane could not cope with the sea conditions. Then two hours later the wind shifts and the wave drop, and you can have the happiest day in your life. That’s the thing I like about the sea. You need to go to sleep, you need to cook, you need to do celestial navigation. Your partner is your self-steering device. Obviously in the Golden Globe Race autopilot is not allowed, so we went back 50 years, right? and the self-steering device which is the windvane was invented in 1936, or something like that, so it’s definately a permitted item onboard. I need to repair these too after one week ! Most of the singelhanded sailors had problems with the windvane. This clutch… it’s a toy! For me it’s a kind of professional… standard, that if you leave the departure port you have to arrive to your destination. Of course it’s a little bit challenging because you have to use both your hands, you have to brace yourself. But the biggest challenge is really in heavy weather. You put your weather gear on. You grab the sextant. Still not hitting the sextant, you open everything, you climb out, and hook yourself up to a kind of safe position. But at the same time a good location for the sight itself. You need a kind of balanced situation, to have the fragile sextant, because if you hit the mirrors or even the frame… So this is a difficult process. So its… its a significant part of the challenges in the Golden Globe Race. Did you enjoy doing it with Celestial navigation? Actually, believe it or not that was one of the most enjoyable things. Ready to collect some water again. It leaks everywhere. I have never had a really dry boat but… this one is definitely not a dry one. Spinnaker is still up. Mainsail… Pushing the boat a little bit to get a bit of ground made up. So i’ll do this for another hour or so, then reduce sail a little bit for the night. I’ll still keep pushing it, so probably sleeping up in the cockpit mostly. It’s great ! I’d never done any long distance solo sailing before. I’d planned on it for a long time I had always wanted to do it I was still obviously unsure about how… I wonder will I actually like this? I was pretty sure I would and.. confirmed that I actually do love it yeah, confirmed my suspicions. Things are going on.. I am a lot ahead of everybody. I’m happy with my mast which is… 1.5 meter under the highest limit. I reduced the mast. I never talked with Jean-luc maybe five times all around the world but… that was his way of racing, you know that was his way of doing it, and you know, we respected that. First, I had two roller furling for the genoa and the staysail. If I the 40 years old I will be like Philippe or… Mark. I would not have roller furling. But I am too old to do that now. The choice of having hanked sails is like a manual gearbox you’ve got a choice of sails to adapt to the different winds and the different angles to the wind. Yes in the beginning I was saying this is stupid, I should have had furlers. These sails are going in the water all the time when you drop them… I got better and better at it, and and I think I’m losing 10 minutes but I… I started doing it faster and faster and faster. So when there was light airs they go little bit faster than me. But with strong wind it was okay. I still would do the same. Yes if I would ever do it again I think I would still do the same way. If I had a mast… like Mark, I would not be here. Mast would be broken, I’m sure. Anyone still out there? Over. I engaged it I guess in the spirit of 1968, so, I was a bit… I guess surprised at the competitive nature that the race became. Even in this race you can become a kind of employee where you have good sponsors, I mean financially you have the money then you are kind of pushed by them. Philippe made it well known that prior to the start, if it wasn’t for sponsors he probably wouldn’t start the race. We are fine-tuning the… self-steering at the present. His life had changed during the build up to the… to the start of the race and that happened to a few entrants where they enter the race years before and during that time their personal situation changes, their financial situation changes, the pressure builds. We had more than one entrant saying… If it wasn’t for sponsors, I wouldn’t be here. And Philippe was one of those. I probably won’t do it again. It is.. too hard for the one that I leave behind. I mean I choose to do it, so you know, I got to be happy with my decision. The one that I leave behind, they haven’t chosen. He was determined to go when he left But … once that windvane went, I think it was all over, and I think he knew it. And… we have a very clear definition of the use of a satellite phone, and this wasn’t a distress, and it wasn’t even emergency purposes. He said – Now I’m going to ring my wife and I don’t care about the consequences. Personally… I think it was a case of the organiser had to kick him out of the race, but atleast he didn’t have to make that decision. The calls, being acused of this and that.. that put me… there was nothing there for me anymore. The love was gone. So I thought, okay well… let’s stop in Cape Town and… and move on, you know. I always, was worried about going too South too soon. Because when you read the original books, Knox-Johnston split the side of his hull and deck, because he’s arriving early in the year, you’re down there in August – September. It’s a unique situation because the faster you are, the sooner you get to the bad weather. I also thought there was a lack of understanding of the Agulhas current. And… I was frankly afraid of the Agulhas current. The likelihood of help from another sailor was a long shot. The boats are so small, trying to have boats come together in those sort of seas… I have a lot of experience, and… I feel I have control. Of course when its… when you don’t have control then you get also scared. Are had quite a small boat and was pushing it hard and was up with the front runners, everyone was giving Are a lot of respect. The first knockdown I got I bent my self-steering gear. It’s not that easy to do repairs in this wind, but we have to do it. I’m going to make that tube shorter. When I was working on that, then suddenly… Bang ! Hello, its Golden Globe. Hi Don… Are. I didn’t understand what happened. I understood I was under the water and couldn’t breathe. I was thinking… Am I sinking? Have I turned over? Is this the end? How it will go? And I was of course fearing that something had happened to the rig. Yeah it was… hard. He’s practiced with the jury rig he probably thought he was never going to use it but now he has to, and he’s… right from his first phone call he’s very much in control. It’s not easy, there’s still some seas.. thankfully it has been done before. He knew exactly what to do he had the jury-rig up in a couple of hours and managed to set sail for home. It was a real testament to him and his ability and skill. He wouldn’t have done anything… foolish in bad weather so what it meant was – If this can happen to Are, this can happen to anyone. Are is a real Able Seaman, he was one of the more Able Seamens in this race. And there was a time I thought maybe this is a little bit irresponsible to be around the Cape of Good, in the winter. Hearing about troubles from other competitors I did not get any joy because we are generally not rivals. We have only one rival it is the ocean. You know you’re not in the right time of the year, you’re just getting hammered. Maybe we should just stop, I was really thinking that, but… You get your guts together again, and then you keep going… because no one is going to give up. We have a windy day today, but it’s beautiful skies. It’s really cold sometimes and I get little sleep during the night because I’m constantly changing sails and adjusting sails, so I wake up every half an hour. Mess! Mess! It’s a Southern Ocean mess. Got no sleep. Hail, snow, everything up there, man. Just unbelievable. My imagination just goes wild when I lay in bed and lay there and do nothing. Then I just have to go outside, and do stuff, and change sails, and… tidy up stuff, until I’m so cold and so tired that I can get a little sleep. The Indian Ocean. who knew it could be this calm? My brother did say to me – If you go for a swim, can you put in your log book that you’ve gone for a swim? Because if for whatever reason I then didn’t come back aboard. Then we won’t spend the rest of lives wondering what happened. Look at my hands. It’s water from my body. And the good thing is it’s warm ! It’s really warm. You can hold onto it and it feels nice. My wife got in touch with the HAM radio guys in South Africa. And she used to send voice messages to me. I can’t reply because I don’t have a HAM set … so I can’t tune HAM frequencies, but I can … hear what she’s saying. Okay I’ll play Abhilash’s one, and hopefully he will hear this too. And it was a song in my language so beautiful and I was just spellbound sitting silent and listening to this song. When the propagation is very bad and the spoken voice doesn’t come through, the whistle still goes through. And we have two kinds of birds in Finland. Is Yes, and is No. And the guys at the other end would have a series of structured questions solving a problem. I would answer them either yes or no by whistling. More than 1000 miles ahead of the others. I cannot reach them on the radio, I cannot hear them. I was a little bit lonely. Almost two and a half months at sea and nothing really prepared me for… this sight. We were on the radio with the three of us, and Abhilash just comes screaming in between, he said – Gregor, Gregor, Gregor look over your starboard stern He looks outside and he says – Yeah I can see you ! It ended up being myself, Mark and Abhilash all very close together and that was chance. We were like – this is the most desolate part of the Indian Ocean, and if something were to happen to us, lets pray that it doesn’t happen here. They’re breaking as well which is quite dangerous. There was a gust that pinned me in the cockpit… I could barely even lift my arm up it was that strong… I don’t think I’ve felt wind strength like that before. You get these coming from the side which just screw everything. I remember at one point looking out over the sea and it was just white. They’re just huge waves. I almost froze, not in fear, like, this is unbelievable, this is phenomenal. I can’t get the boat to stay pointing down wind on it’s own. So I have to basically be out here steering. Well ! So I just had a pretty severe knockdown. Boat was well below the horizontal. I was on… Yeah, look coffee on the ceiling ! I could feel it going over it kept going and going… I was on deck at the time, so, luckily I was tied on. I looked around and there’s my mizzen mast, I was quite surprised how the hell has that broken? The mast itself failed, the rigging was all fine. Just look at the devastation. He managed to get everything off over the side, he was doing everything right. … and he was in control but you could tell in the tone of his voice, and just listening in the background you can hear the wind, everything getting chucked around. Got some bad news, I got rolled, main mast is gone now as well. Umm okay, so you’ve been rolled, and are you okay? He was a little bit afraid, and… looking for… a second opinion on what might be the best thing to do to set the boat up. Will you do me a favour Don? Yeah. I think I just lost you. Only weeks before we’d done a crisis management exercise in the office, like a training run, with all the different people… and, just to make it realistic I dropped in there, no one knew about was the idea of… another incident, there could be two, at the same time. You had this… wind sheer, this gradient where we knew it would be blowing from the North and within minutes it was going to go… 60 or 70 and on the front it could have gone 70 – 80 knots from the South. I’m standing here ready to go outside to hand steer for 12 hours. Right now it’s still okay the seas not built up yet but in an hour or two the seas going to be high and big. I could hear it coming, and it came and it hit and I was holding the tiller with both my hands with my legs stuck on the… other side, and trying to pull it and the tiller was bending… all the wood was bending like this, and the boat still… wasn’t managable. So that’s when the first knockdown happened and I was pushed under water and when the boat straightened, the mizzen had broken. yeah, it was just horrendous… it was unbelievable. We said lets come on the radio just to see how we’re doing. And then no one comes on, no one came on that sched. Oh my god ! This is really bad. It just got dark and it was 60 to 70 knots. And I was sitting on the couch ready to go outside at any minute. And then just one wave smashed into the back of the boat so hard, and it broke the door. You know the boat is full of water and… there’s not a moment I thought… I just thought – I’m going to fight this right to the end and I’m going to get through. I pumped for a good hour or something like that, but all this time the boat is side-on to the waves. I thought it’d be good time to do a prayer… So when I got the water out I went outside. You’re looking at mountains of waves… there’s 15 – 20 meter waves, and … It’s dark, you’re not really seeing them properly you’re just seeing the boat go 45 degrees, and then… I just say that I want to get through and I’ll be a better person when I get back. I will not throw any plastic away, and I’ll try and do stuff, simple stuff but please get me through this one. And then I got another big one I was hand-steering and got thrown over the side of the boat. The boat got knocked down and it came up very violently and threw me straight back into the cockpit. I just continued steering again because that’s the only thing I can do. The thing I will always remember about this storm I would may down low on the boat I put a Spinnaker on top of me so if I get rolled, I will not get thrown into the ceiling hard. And there was always this little bit of noise in the boat, the water going along the hull and it sounded so peaceful, you know This was the the good part in the storm, there was the violent guy outside but I just listen to these really nice little waves going past the hull. And I only listen to that sound for a few minutes, then I go outside then it’s just… 100 decibel of noise? And again, I could hear the wave I knew that it was going to hit but this time instead of holding the tiller and trying to steer the boat I just left it because I knew there was no point. There was a moment when you’re pressed under water, and every moment seems like many minutes and, there was a moment when I… told myself that if I open my arms I could finish everything right now. You know, that would be the end of it. And then I thought… No. So finally when the boat straightened I was hanging on the spreader somewhere, with my watch… stuck on a shroud, and I couldn’t figure out why my hand is stuck and why I’m not coming down. So I was trying to hold the mast, pull myself up a little bit and maybe realease the hand. And then the strap broke, then I fell with my back on the boom and then I fell on the deck. Jane comes running in, and basically, with the tweet and, the famous words : Rolled, dismasted back injury, can’t move. I realised the race is coming to an end, a lot of things are coming to an end, and obviously I was injured. I thought maybe the right thing to do is to cry and I tried, and I just couldn’t cry. But I’ve got some other bad news to tell you about : Tomy has been dismasted, okay he’s got a severe back injury and he can’t move, okay? Okay, if there’s anything at all I can do let me know and I’ll do my best. Uku’s behind me by… 4-500 miles, he’s going to be days and days. Mark is ahead. At this stage I just want to keep you in the loop with what’s happening because he’s about 100 miles from you and we’re not expecting you to be able to do anything, at all. I did’t know Abhilash before the start of the race but we were chatting everyday on the radio, so… we’d become quite close, like early internet friends. So I was there thinking to myself… I’m definately going to be the closest boat to him. I got a jury-rig set up as quick as I could, and luckily I still had a spinnaker pole. With Tomy… we didn’t know! After we got that message we didnt hear for about 12 hours. We had to expect the worst. My first fear was that maybe he’s go internal bleeding. If thats the case, then no one’s going to get to him for days. Okay, just monitor the phones. The next of kin is not his wife? If you can get her, I’ll talk to her. Someone’s ringing… an 0-9… That must be the one that’s trying to ring. The first thing about survival in that condition was to get hold of my mind. So… that’s what I did. I didn’t feel any despair or anything… I never thought that I would not be recsued. But the same time I prepared myself for the eventuality of not being rescued. So, I was like… Weighing all the options. So, just to let you know all we’ve received so far is that one message, okay. But certainly he’s a very competent guy and, if… He knows what to do he’s got us that message that takes a bit of brain power to send that message, a lot more work than just turning on an EPIRB. I just didn’t want to feel sorry for anything, but I did consider that if I wouldn’t be able to walk again, maybe… I’ll ask my wife to leave. I didn’t want to tie her down to all these responsibilities of taking care of me for the rest of my life. So at this stage if he hasn’t turned on his EPIRB I’d like to think that Tomy’s still in control right? So… there’s not a lot for us to… to do until he gets back to us but we are doing things if you know what I mean we’re assuming the worst, and planning for the best. Does that makes sense? Whenever Don would send me a message I made it a point to send an immediate reply But… later on I was surprised to know that… there was this huge gap where there was no communication from me. We got the next message explaining more and from then on we had confidence but it was still scary because he he had things happening with his body he didn’t understand, and so it wasn’t over, we didn’t know whether he would get out of there alive or not. He can’t even get to his grab bag to get the second satellite phone. They’re talking about trying to get a plane overhead The objective is for a fisheries research vessel that could be there in about two and a half days. The Indian Navy wanted to help as much as they could they knew if they asked if they could help the Australians the Australians probably would have said : No, we’re in control, it’s okay. So they didn’t ask. So we now had the… the Indian Navy, full blown with everything and we had the Australian government throwing everything they could at it. And so you had a race to get to Tomy. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead… I didn’t know if his boat was sinking. I didn’t know what state anything… I didn’t know if there was any water left onboard or if it was contaminated. This fishing boat, when.. Do you have an ETA on that? Okay, they’re struggling in weather as well. You’re potentially onboard 24 hours before they get there. I hadn’t slept in… 36 – 48 hours at this point. And you will have limited ability to do anything but it is valuable if you decide to do it and there is no pressure on you to do it. Nearly three days trying to get to his position. There were so many risks of leaving my boat and getting onto his boat. It would have been unbelievably reckless and I knew all this. And I was praying somebody would get there before I would, because… what could I do, really? Probably nothing. So that day I heard voices. And there was this very clear voice, which after a knock, said Do we have permission to come inside the boat? I said yes, and thats when I knew there were people around me. The Indians were certainly going to go and rescue him, come what may. It was in the Australian’s patch and they wanted to be there too. In the end it’s the French, bless their cotton socks, who picked up both of them. If there’s a resuce there, on site 20 miles away… and I turn it down, and then a week, two weeks later… and I have to call for a rescue… I’d be deservedly berated. Well, rescue has arrived. French fishing patrol vessel. So I left the boat and then went to on the… Osirus. Tomy was onboard… they said he was sleeping, so… leave him be, it wasn’t too long, and I went down to see him, he was… all smiles as he always is, so that was nice.. I think I called him a bollocks! But yeah… that was great seeing him again anyway. I got up, I took crutches, and then I took of the flip-flops and I was walking on wet grass, and thats when one of those pictures was taken Interestingly about a week before the accident happened, I had a dream that I was walking on wet grass, and this is exactly how it felt when I was walking on wet grass I remembered that dream. When they were taking a picture I said make sure the French flag is there and it’s seen in the picture. The principle of – how much is a life worth? Is complicated in itself. So you strive hard to… achieve a rescue with the least impact. Each of these entrants in the Golden Globe Race have done everything they possibly can to make the effort of the rescuers the least possible and expose them to the least… danger, but at the end of the day, everyone will have to answer their own question on how much is a human life worth? And what’s it all about? It’s the night a night with a full moon. We are here, a little bit under Melbourne. I’ve turned my map on the other side and I’m pretty happy. Mark Slats is quite far behind… the other two just got rescued, thankfully. I’m happy about that! We needed more weather, and more information than we were getting. If you click on the adjuster button for the wind and slide it along, every time I hit it once, it goes one hour this is a tutorial on how to do this. I remember that Windy app that Mark put on my phone, I put it on the computer, and I… start looking at it, and… trying to work it, and… This system is going to come right past him and the further north he can stay, the better. Yeah, so she’s goes on the interne and she would record the message. So I send that in a voice message to Ian. V – K – 3 – Mike – Oscar calling and listening, over. Uku and Susie asked me to do it. So I was doing every night… weather reports. Susie’s got a nice breeze, Istvan, Tapio, happy as.. So I had to start making statements.. Now, this part is not to be recorded and delivered to the entrants because what I’m about to tell you is Weather Routing! So that’s how I learn, so actually Don teach me how to do it. We do it because we want to inspire people to adventure because adventure makes good people. Doesn’t matter what it is. I’m like this sort of… father figure, over a bunch of people going out there and I’ve got to make sure I look after them as best I can. Some people couldn’t do it, we can, because we’ve got a lot of these little connections and skills and it’s what we like doing. Don is a busy man as you can guess We don’t know how many are going to finish this race. We started with 18 and we’re now down to 7. We are late, looking for the carpark. From our eyes there were a lot of people watching and that was important because… the whole focus was to spread the world around the world, and introduce the story to a whole new generation of young sailors that had never heard of it before. They say – What’s going on? Old boats, huh? And it wasn’t just sailors that were following, it was mums and dads… they’d say Wow! Check out the size of that boat! Wow! Look at Susie go! Wow! This guy is 73? Wow! They might all be asleep. The shore is always more dangerous than when you are in an open sea. You have more risk with the boats, you have more risk with rocks, you have more risk than in the middle of nowhere. The time actually starts from when he crossed this gate, he’s got to be atleast 90 minutes. Under sailing guidelines it’s still solo, non-stop around the world because they don’t get off their boats. You can anchor anywhere and have a break so long as it’s not in the port… So… you’re still having fun then? Not to come here… it’s very difficult. But it was for Moitessier too! Yes. What is interesting for him is to do the same thing that the people who made him dream… did before. The self-steering is one of the.. key… of the success, and I think I was very well prepared. I am a lot ahead and I am sorry. No need to be sorry. Everyone… has great admiration for such a young man performing so well. He is totally at one with the sea. That’s one of the reasons I believe he was so far in front. And he likes to be an animator. Really, he likes it! But he likes also to be alone. He doesn’t need anybody to live. I said – he’s gone.. I want to do something new, because I have more time, and I learn piano… I think in this is kind of race you must… be sure about yourself. You must believe in you, and be sure that you can manage everything by yourself. It is not good to think that perhaps another one can help you. The storm itself was nearly identical… to…Gregor and Tomy, but you were in a much better position. During these low pressure systems I put the boom in the water twice which must have weakened the turnbuckle clevis. It’s just when you pick the phone up and answer it, that moment is really special because you’re waiting to find out who it is. Just confirming that his pumps are working. So his bilge pumps are all working? And… you just.. it can be anything. You just don’t know. When the mast broke it fell it sank immediately and started to rub under the hull. I dared to hope it was minor scratches but unfortunately a few hours later I had water inside and so I had a good hole, in the hull. It was inevitable that the boat would gradually sink a repair never held, ever For the race statistically it wasn’t a good thing, but thats what happens, it can happen to anyone. I think we are most probably are all pursuing our own dreams and they differ from one sailor to another. The race was great because without the race, I wouldn’t have done it, and so the race was a call to action. But the race… in itself doesn’t exist it’s not real. My primary goal is to get around without stopping or without assistance. And if I come in last place, but I’ve achieved that, then I’ll be happy. Life in the Golden Globe Race is all about drinking cups of tea. As far as I’m concerned. I was reluctant to… conserve water to the degree that probably I should have. I actually thought, I’ll catch water later on. The visability drops down to 100 – 200 meters in this.. down pour. I was really struggling to get 100 miles a day. 80 miles a day was all I was doing. And so I shoved my head over the side. When I saw the barnacles then I gave up on the water.. Am I going to drag these barnacles halfway around the world? No. There were big bundles of them. They were growing on top of each other. It hurt my soul and I suffered, and I still suffer, but I like to claim that I kept on racing anyway. Unbelievable, the power .. that was in that wave, it just shattered the door. Then you look at the log book… 16 days of easterly winds! From the Cape of Good Hope. and.. you know.. you really want to do as good as possible and get close to Jean-Luc. That’s my whole plan to… and very time… it’s just… I get stopped every time again and again and again. When you signed on for the race you must have had an opinion on what was going to happen? What I wanted to do to see Southern Ocean waves, huge waves. And I did, a lot of them. Do you want the bad news now? You have on the bottom of the boat growth, that long! It could even be one knot. I’m not sure whether you’re a water person? I think actually getting here to Hobart is… is… feels like quite a milestone, to be honest. So steering through the big storm, how did you stay mentally strong? I was actually… so focused on the waves and keeping the boat down wave that… not that much went through my… through my brain. I did think of my mum though. I am… recalling my relationships, the important people in my life, my friends, my relatives. They come back unfortunately, a lot of them are already on the other side, but they come back with episodes of our lives that we spent together, and it’s just.. It’s unbelievable, I am… I am with them… thanks to this … isolation. Yeah, this is one of the… One of the benefits of the… of the race. You are able to reconnect with these people. Even with a strong wind she was only going 4 knots, and as Australia got close, no more than 2.5 knots, I couldn’t move. I thought for about a week. I thought, well it make sense to go back to work now while I’ve got a job to go back to, I can pay a few bills I’ve had a bit of learning and I can work out what I… what I want to do next. I talked to the other participants who stopped the race. They’d had enough. There’s… pizza here! But I suppose that for about half a year they’ll lie on the sofa… and the heart will beat again and the sea will call them again. It’s a little bit of concern for me because they start dropping out and I worry untill the end is there anybody left? We’ll put some grids on here as well so we can see relative positions. Here’s the 40th parallel here. They still want to try and get down. I’m hoping like crazy they get down here to the 40th parallel then they’re right. If I wanted to go to Cape Horn I will be exactly at 90 degrees of the wind, with the waves coming right on the boat. If I had to do that again I will go more down wind, and I will not capsize. I’ve never, ever heard of that bolt holding the lowers ripping down through a mast section. So I wake up and I saw my mast like a spaghetti. And I say – well I’m going to Chile, I cannot go more! He called me to say – I want to tell you myself that I… stop the race. He said – Well I didn’t succeed, thats all. It would be fantastic if you sail home. It’s shattered a lot of people’s feelings. You can rejoin the event, as a Chichester sailor but you’re not in the rankings of the GGR. So right now Mark Slats is leading the GGR He certainly wouldn’t have slowed up. He didn’t sleep for two or three days, just to go faster and faster and faster. My hands are like leather. I can let ropes slide through my hand and they don’t get burnt, it’s unbelievable. Obviously he didn’t really want to pull out of the race and drop down the class, and after a couple of days he’d worked out, having looked at it that he thought he could do something to fix it. He went up the mast 8 times and fixed up a jury-rig on his mast. Yes. I find a little shackle to reinforce. Yes. I say – Perhaps I have 50 percent chance to arrive. Okay, that’s very exciting news. What I need to tell you, is that we will probably have to give you an 18-hour time penalty. For using a satellite phone. Good luck, and Saturday morning we fly back to Les Sables d’Olonne. That’s going to change a few things. Yes he knows there is a higher risk of losing the mast now. But! In Jean-lucs words… I’m ready, I have my jury-rig ready to go, I’ve practiced with it. So from an organizers perspective, If anyone ever says – This is ridiculous, he’s being reckless! I’d just say – sorry he’s not! He’s being a real seaman, so… he hasn’t given up, that’s the bottom line. Problem was, he couldn’t sail so fast. He couldn’t be the same strain on the mast as he had before. In the first week after he damaged his mast, Slats took 500 miles out of him. And it was always a question – Had he built up a big enough lead? Was 2,000 miles enough? So if you said 10 miles a day… 90 days at 10 miles is 900. He can afford to lose 20 miles a day, so it’s only one knot! So if Mark Slats can sail one knot faster than him, he’ll catch him, that’s entirely likely. It will make life interesting, thats for sure. When you pass Cape Horn, it seems in your mind the race is finished, but it is far to be finished. To go up the Atlantic is very, very long. You are 56 South, and you must go up 47 North… It was one of those storms that everything was perfect. It was on the edge of going wrong, but it all went right I think we all thought she would end up third and on the podium, It was looking that way. She’s probably in 70 knots at the moment, seas state probably 8 – 9 meters and the wind direction is changing right where she activated her EPIRB. Don is coming! Well we rolled, and I threw across the cabin, and I think I was… knocked, knocked out for a moment or two. She was… the golden girl of the race in a way. Can I confirm the liferaft and all your equipment is okay? The boat inside and out, is destroyed. I can’t make a jury-rig. The only thing that’s left is a hull. If you ask me if I would do this again, now knowing what it’s like I would say yes in a heart beat, but as I said to the Chilean Navy Captain who brought me ashore from Tian Fu, I created so much work for everyone involved in the rescue… To which he responded – Of course you must do it again! It really could have turned a lot of people off the GGR, but the reaction was generally positive. I was quite… Once again, impressed and in awe at Susie. She’s quite a special lady. I used to be a half-empty person. But now I’m learning to accept when you do things, things go wrong and then you just try to fix that. Don making joke now I’m a half full person. And then it starts to be a beat to the wind, indeed, and that beating just never stopped. I think when he was about 12 years of age, he went on his bicycle to a big town town where there’s a big port and he took with him… his fishing rod, and his geography book. He tried to fish but he’s not very good fisherman. A little squid on the deck ! Just trying to go north, and north… It’s boring! After I was obliged to tack and go east, during that time, Mark has better wind and he caught me a lot of miles. The French thought we were supporting the Dutch, and the Dutch thought we were supporting the French. If both sides are unhappy, you’ve done the right thing. I never got his position, I never had any idea where he was. We’re not allowed to get each other’s position! But Jean-luc was doing it a little bit different, he was still getting my position, but they would say I’m at 180 degrees at 120 miles. I was doing 40 miles, he was doing 140… And then I was just extremely lucky that he ran into a quiet patch. He sits there for nearly 3 days… You can do nothing. And I knew that Biscay in January you can have very rough weather, like at Cape Horn. And we had… I’m up the mast, we’re in 35 knots. And I really learnt my boat, she’s one tough little boat, it’s amazing. There’s some bad weather coming! And Mark Slats is… just, bang, bang, bang! Pushing the boat hard! When it gets really rough, I sit on deck and look at the waves, and… I love sitting up here, watching these waves, I sit there and think… I’m really getting value for my money it’s great, I love it. I’d rather have him stay home and …have a wife or kids, every mother would like that. I’m proud of him, for his capacity to live without any comfort, and a lot of things that people don’t like. I’m being his mother, I like to have him near me, and… So I can see him everyday. But that’s not like Mark, and this is what Mark likes, so… He has to go for it. You have to live your own life. I think many people have been inspired by the race, and I think that is the achievement already, so we are very happy, and I think we make some history. Us, all of us. Yes. There was still a big sea running from the previous gale, but the wind was slacking off so, his spinnaker was… flapping a bit. He was looking extremely calm, very collected, and of course he was surrounded by a huge flotilla of boats that grew and grew as he got closer to the finish line. Okay, that’s it! Now we can finally say he’s actually won the Golden Globe Race, we have a winner. Fifty years on.. and here’s Sir Robin – what do you reckon? Well, there goes my record! He resists to all things which are againts him. That’s the lesson he… a lot of people take from his example. It was very simple – we did it! Jean-Luc did it, but so did we. It was cool. It was the end of the story, and I was very, very, very happy. The Golden Globe is just a game where you try to go around the world without stops You… arrive to compete and to finish the game or you don’t arrive, and that’s it. We didn’t think everyone would complete it at all. It’s too big of a challenge. But the ones who do complete it, well… Every one of them who comes back into Les Sables, that finishes the race is a winner. I was a little bit closer to the finish for 4 hours, but.. he was still a bit more to the north, than me, so… That’s where the race ended. I lived for those months, 7 months… It looks like I lived for it, you know what I mean? I look up to tracker updates, I’m so busy with it… I have to be there in February when Mark is there… I don’t have time to think about my sickness, I just have to… I want to be here. I refer to John F. Kennedy’s speech at the 1963 America’s Cup, 5 years before the original Golden Globe Race. It reminded… of the interesting fact that the salt content of human blood… equals… salt… Salt content of ocean water, here… I…really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea. Except, I think it’s because we all came from the sea and it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt, in our blood that exists in the ocean. And therefore… we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears… we are tied to the ocean, and when we go back to the sea whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came. Then it’s quiet, hey! All of a sudden it’s quiet. He couldn’t see me but I could see him and he was waving, and that’s a sight I won’t forget! It all just went a little bit past me. I just wanted to see my mother, and… I never thought I was going to see him again. I said – It’s all going to be good now I’m going to be back, and… we’re going to start new adventures now, you finished one and you start the next adventure, and I’m all happy and I’m already I’ve already started with it, you know, and… I have a whole line up for the next 10 years so I’m going to be busy, and… it’s going to be one thing after the other. I hope he lives his life the way he wants to live it. But I also want him to find rest. And I think every mother likes to wish that for their sons. Wow! What is he trying to do? Nice to be here. It was kind of a… a floating reef. At the worst it was a drifting reef. And of course the finish is the most gorgeous thing. When you… get the chance to hug your wife. After 8 months and 21 days! You know, the first shower… That was really, really something special. I had to accept it, and… It didn’t spoil the second race… the race against the ocean. Instead of 3 we now have 5 of them doing their job of piloting very diligently. The closer I got… the color of the water changed and the birds changed. Crossing the finish line and finishing up my last bit of the Finnish yellow together with my family that was certainly a big emotional moment, and I have to say I was proud at that time. And it was the start of the big celebration. Yeah I enjoyed it, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I thought I’d be a lot more miserable at times. Bone grafting and spinal fusion… The present for the baby… But the good thing is all my previous back aches have been sorted out, I don’t have them anymore. I am happy to forget bad memories, and there were plenty. But I didn’t expect this kind of… really fast closure, its… It’s interesting that – almost losing it…