An overview, till early May , of the edition of a fantastic race. Two stood pushed to the Chichester Class. The rest had retired. This included two major accidents β a case of a boat sinking in the Indian Ocean in November and another of a boat rolled and dismasted in the southern Atlantic Ocean in April The race was won by Kirsten Neuschafer of South Africa.
The GGR had got underway on September 4, He had led the race by a considerable margin for much of the voyage before the need to repair his boat forced him to deviate to coastal Chile, relegating him to the Chichester Class sailing with one stopover of the race.
With that he stopped being one of the contenders for a podium finish in the main GGR, which requires solo, non-stop sailing. However, Simon caught up with the competitors who had gone past him during that halt in Chile, overtook them and finished ahead of all in the early afternoon UTC of April 27, She is also the first South African sailor to win such an event.
Her voyage as part of the GGR was remarkable not just for the quality of sailing she showed but also the rescue of fellow GGR participant, Tapio Lehtinen. The rescue happened in November The intervention, also fetched her time-credit in the race, as compensation.
Two things set the GGR apart from other races involving circumnavigation of the planet. Given it has the flavour of a retro-sailing event, some aspects of technology and access to technology permitted for the race have been pegged back to what prevailed a few decades ago.
