Only 23 sailors from all over the world will embark on an adventure of a lifetime for more than 200 days – away from the rest of the world, navigating with a sextant and the stars – and two of them are from South Africa.
Jeremy Bagshaw and Kirsten Neuschäfer will leave SA shores within a fortnight to sail to Les Sables d’Olonne (France), the starting point of the Golden Globe Race 2022.
Kirsten Neuschäfer was born in Gqeberha in 1982.
Aside from the massive challenge of a solo navigation, the competitors are only allowed technology on their boats from 1968. The boats they can use are true to the history of the event and must be traditional, heavy displacement, long keel, production sailboats between 32’ and 36’ overall, and they must have been designed before 1988.
The Golden Globe Race is a 30 000 nautical mile race around the world departing from France.
No GPS allowed and the sailors can expect to spend 200 – 300 days at sea sailing single handed non-stop and unsupported with restricted technology and gear from 1968.
Interestingly, in 1968-1969, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston won the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, the first solo, non-stop, round-the-world race in history, sailing for 312 days.
In 2018, 50 years later, this legendary adventure was reborn in Les Sables d’Olonne for a second edition with the same navigation aids as available in 1968. Famous French sailor Jean-Luc Van Den Heede won the race in 211 days.
Kirsten Neuschäfer hails from Gqeberha.
Born on 23 June 1982, Kirsten has been sailing dinghies since her childhood, but sailing since 2006 as a profession. From sailing training to sailboat deliveries, she built a diverse set of skills and experience. Kirsten’s longest single-handing was a delivery from Portugal to South Africa with only a windvane as self-steering, on an old and maintenance-intensive 32-foot ferro-cement sloop. In 2015, she began working for Skip Novak on his Pelagic Expeditions to South Georgia, The Antarctic Peninsula, Patagonia and the Falklands.
Kirsten has sailed several film crews down to capture the beauty of the Antarctic. She was featured in National Geographic series “Wild_Life Resurrection Island with Bertie Gregory” as she sailed his crew throughout South Georgia to shed light on the beautiful ecosystems and hardships they’ve faced. She also sailed and was a support vessel for several crews from the newest BBC series “Seven Worlds, One Planet” for footage of leopard seal predation against gentoo penguins and albatross behavior from Bird Island South Georgia.
Along with sailing, she also enjoys other solitary adventures. She cycled from Europe back home to South Africa (15000 km over approximately one year) on her own when she was just 22. She traveled throughout the Northwest and Central Africa into Southern Africa and eventually ending in Cape Agulhas. The trip brought trials and tribulations but was life-enriching in every sense, giving her the deepest appreciation of Africa and her people.
Kirsten will be sailing Minnehaha – a Cape George 36, launched in 1988. She was built in the Cape George yard in Port Townsend, Washington.
This boat design was created by Cecil Lange, an esteemed boat builder. With the help of Ed Monk, a designer, the Cape George 36 is a fiberglass adaptation of the Tally Ho Major, Atkins 1930s boat.
Minnehaha is a fictional native woman from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1855 poem “The Song of Hiawatha.” She is the lover of the poem’s primary character, Hiawatha. The name Minnehaha is said to mean “laughing water’ in the poem. It more accurately translates to “waterfall” in the Dakota Sioux language.
Simonstown resident Jeremy Bagshaw was born 25 December 1962.
A lifelong sailor, Bagshaw was been introduced to the sport of sailing by his father at the tender age of 6. He graduated through various dinghies from Optimists to Lasers and Fireballs. After years of competitive dinghy sailing, Jeremy’s first introduction to offshore racing was as crew on a Lavranos designed Charger 33, an IOR racer, in the 1985 South Atlantic Race from Cape Town to Punta Del Este in Uruguay. Jeremy then sailed the return delivery to Cape Town in the autumn with a short-handed crew.
Later that year, Bagshaw did his first delivery as skipper of a Farr 38 from the East Coast of South Africa to Mauritius and then skippered the race back from Mauritius to Durban. More recently Bagshaw won the Governor’s Cup Race from Cape Town to St Helena twice, once as Skipper of an inexperienced crew of Saint Helenians and the second as co-skipper of a Farrier 31 trimaran (double-handed).
After selling his business in 2012 Bagshaw decided to slow things down a bit and did some cruising with his family throughout the Indian Ocean and subsequently did many deliveries throughout the Indian Ocean, South Atlantic, Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Patagonia. After spending three years helping two friends start and develop a rigging business, Bagshaw withdrew from the business to focus on his Golden Globe Race preparation.
Bagshaw says; “I suppose the competitive nature of sailing is an inspiration in itself, but it was the rawness and beauty of the Southern Ocean as partly experienced on a charter to Tierra del Fuego with Pelagic Expeditions in 2007 that has been the catalyst for this GGR venture.”
Bagshaw will be sailing, Olleanna, an OE32 foot masthead cutter with an LOA of 32.45 foot designed by Olle Enderlein.
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