Now here’s something completely different – racing singlehanded around the world in a 19-foot sloop from Antigua to Antigua via Panama and the Cape of Good Hope. That’s right, in a 19-footer.
Well, on Sunday February 23, 15 boats skippered by 13 men and two woman from eight countries, set off from Antigua on the first leg of the new McIntyre Mini Globe Race. Their route to Panama was due west across the Caribbean Sea and through waters north of Colombia known to be some of the roughest anywhere at this time of year.
As of this week, 14 of the 15 boats in the race had completed the 1,200-mile passage to Panama and were safely moored in Shelter Bay Marina. Only one straggler, Gary Swindell on Question 2, was still out there having started the race a week late.
From Panama the race will take the fleet of 5.80-meter sloops across the equator into the south Pacific where they will stop in Tahiti, Tonga and Fiji then head to the Torres Straits between Australia and New Guinea and make a stop in Darwin.
From Australia, they sail across the Southern Indian Ocean, known for being a tough stretch of water, with stops at Cocos Keeling, Mauritius and Durban, South Africa. They’ll have a long layover in Cape Town and will then sail up the Atlantic with stops at St. Helena and Recife, Brazil, before tying the knot in Antigua.
This crazy race is the brain-child of Australian Don McIntyre who was also the organizer of the recent Golden Globe Race around the world. He decided he wanted to run a big event for ordinary people who do not have sponsors or shore crews. Plus, they would also build their own boats for the race.
McIntyre has long been a fan of John Guzzwell who in the 1950s built a 21-foot Laurent Giles-designed sloop in British Columbia, which he named Trekka, and sailed it around the world on a route that the Mini Globe Race will share from Australia onward. Guzzwell’s book Trekka Around the World was and is an inspiration for many small-boat voyagers.
The 5.80 class is an organized one-design association and the boats they race are meant to be identical. They are built of plywood by the stitch-and-tape method and fited with simple sloops rigs. Although they might be small, they are sturdy, seaworthy designs with enough accommodations for a solo sailor and his gear. The designer emphasizes that the 5.80 has a limit of positive stability of 160 degrees in a knock-down. That’s impressive.
You can purchase a complete CNC-cut flat-pack of all the plywood pieces you will need, plus rudder, daggerboard and some hardware for about $10,000. But, as mechanical toy box labels say, batteries not included, assembly required.
We’ll be following the race and will report back with news and there is bound to be a host of adventures and stories to tell with 15 19-footers sailing around the world.
(Many thanks to Bob Osborn, SV Pandora, who took the photos of the start.)
