Satellite phones are allowed, but only for communication with race officials and the occasional media interview. "I really like the aspect of sailing by celestial navigation, sailing old school," she says, adding that she's always wanted to know "what it would have been like back then when you didn't have all the modern technology at your fingertips." "The single-handed aspect was the one that drew me," Neuschafer, who is from South Africa, says of her decision to enter. The prize of 5,000 pounds (about $6,045) is the same as it was in the 1960s and is not even enough to cover entry fees.
To find their position at sea, participants instead rely on navigating by the sun and stars and simple speed calculations. And they do so without modern electronic aids - no laptops or electronic charts, radar or sophisticated weather routing. Unlike its more famous cousin, the Vendée Globe solo nonstop race with its purpose-built vessels made for speed, Golden Globe entrants sail low-tech boats that wouldn't look out of place in any coastal marina.
The race is a throwback in most every way. Since then, more people have traveled to space than have done what Neuschafer is hoping to accomplish. The race is a solo, nonstop, unassisted circumnavigation, a feat first accomplished in 1969, the same year that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon. Of the 16 entrants who departed five months ago, only four are still in the race, and for the moment at least, she's leading. Since setting off from the coast of France in September, Neuschafer, the only woman competing, has left all rivals in her wake. That's because Neuschafer is battling to win what is possibly the most challenging competition the sailing world has to offer - the Golden Globe Race. "The closer I get to the Horn," she says, "the more serious things become, the windier it becomes."īut there's no turning back.
Her plan, she explains over a scratchy satellite phone connection, is to get away from the eye of the storm. The storm is threatening wind gusts up to 55 miles per hour and seas building to 25 feet. Instead of sailing directly for the tip of South America, she's spent the past day heading north in an effort to skirt the worst of the oncoming weather. Somewhere in the Southern Pacific Ocean, Kirsten Neuschafer is alone on her boat, Minnehaha, as she tries to outmaneuver the latest storm to cross her path as she approaches Cape Horn.
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