35th Annual Event
Bradenton Yacht Club
Annual Fall Kickoff Regatta 2017 The Regatta Committee and Competitors wish to extend our thanks to this year’s sponsors
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December 2017
SOUTHWINDS
LETTERS “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.” A.J. Liebling
SHANE FREEMAN AND THE GOLDEN GLOBE RACE (Re: September issue, “The Golden Globe Race 1968/2018”) Reference your interesting article on the Golden Globe Race scheduled for 2018 and the demise of Mushka 600 miles from Cape Horn. We have the same boat as Shane Freeman, a Tradewind 35, in which we have completed two Atlantic circuits, so this type of vessel is familiar to us, and the proposed race is of considerable interest. You write that Shane’s boat was “too damaged for repair,” and that his rescue took place “in very difficult conditions.” He described them as “very much the norm down here.” Miles Smeeton’s book, Once is Enough, describes the repair work carried out by the Smeetons and John Guzzwell to Tzu-Hang, a 46-foot, teak-hulled ketch built in 1938, when about 900 miles west of the Magellan Straits in 1956, following a similar capsize to Mushka’s, and following which they managed to reach Chile. Tzu Hang did not have the “secure hull” which Freeman credits Mushka as having after the capsize. One entrant in the 2018 race, Robin Davie, was dismasted west of Cape Horn in the 1994 BOC Around Alone race and made it under jury rig to the Falkland Islands, a distance greater than 600 miles. The proposed race should interest any offshore sailors. While the preparations and planning for it far exceed that of the 1968 race, it raises questions of what can be expected of this type of boat around the five capes if properly prepared and sailed. Today we have the Vendee Globe for single handers (“around the world in 80 days”) and the Volvo Ocean Race, but these are sailed by professional sailors in light-weight flyers built with high strength and expensive modern materials. The design of sailing boats has moved on considerably since 1968, but the 2018 Golden Globe is to be sailed by “ordinary” circumnavigators in traditionally designed and constructed long-keeled vessels of 32 to 36 feet LOA. At present, six of the probable entrants are sailing a Rustler 36. Not only does the Rustler have a long keel, but it has a tiller and transom hung rudder, so it is easy to carry a replacement, making a permanent steering loss less likely. Most of the entered vessels also have internal ballast, so no keel bolt problems. I would not expect that the deck would part company with the hull, bulkheads come adrift or a keel drop off on any of these vessels. Writing in the UK magazine, Yachting Monthly, in August, Freeman says that his normal practice at night was to head dead downwind with a small jib sheeted hard, and that this had proved safe. However, he had suffered damage to his Fleming wind vane steering when the bridle securing his drogue fouled the vane’s paddle. Because of this damage, on Day 70 of the voyage, with WSW winds (around 250 degrees true) gusting to 50 knots, he was not able to follow this normal downwind practice, and the boat would not steer herself better than about 150 degrees true—almost on a beam reach. After the capsize, (and this was a capsize—not a knock-down—as he writes that the cabin sole became the deckhead), he determined that the hull was secure, but salvaging the boom and securing the mast (which was in two pieces), then unhanking the sails, took several exhausting www.southwindsmagazine.com