It’s been described as the perfect start in Cape Town, for the second leg of the Ocean Globe Race, with sun, breeze and Table Mountain in the background.

At 11:00 local time the yachts departed the V&A Waterfront marina at three-minute intervals. Line honours winner of leg one, Spirit of Helsinki, was the first to leave, followed by Pen Duick, IRC winner of leg one Translated 9, Maiden UK, L’Esprit d’équipe, Outlaw, Neptune, Triana, White Shadow, Galiana WithSecure and finally Evrika.

At 14:00 local time, two naval vessels (South African Naval Vessel SAS King Sekhukhune 1 and French Navy Frigate Floréal) signalled the race start and the yachts set sail on the 7,250 miles to Auckland.

Three yachts didn’t make the start line. The South African entrant Sterna is scheduled to start today (6 Nov 2023), once rigging work is completed. Explorer only arrived the day before race start, after 55 days at sea. Godspeed from the USA is still over 400 miles from Cape Town.

“It was a magnificent start. The conditions were absolutely perfect. Someone commented that one of the French boats came the closest to ramming into the French ship. Which wouldn’t have been an international incident, but merely a domestic affair,” says previous Golden Globe competitor Jeremy Bagshaw who was onboard Floréal to watch the start.

The OGR, a retro race in the spirit of the 1973 Whitbread Round the World Race, means no computers, no GPS, and no high-tech materials. Sextants and paper charts will guide those about to take on the Southern Ocean. Seven of the fleet are former Whitbread competitors.

Many of the sailors consider leg two the most daunting of their round-the-world adventure, as it takes in the mighty Southern Ocean.

“It’s going to be cold, wet and exhilarating. It’s not a place for man, it’s a place for animals and birds. I’m a little nervous, yes,” admitted Deniz Derin Binaroglu a crew member from Translated 9.

Fellow crew mate Baptiste Gillot Devillers has some butterflies but combined with excitement. “I really want to discover this part of the sea and world – nobody I know has gone there. We have some people on board who have explained how it’s going to be and it makes the desire to go there grow a lot. Now that we are nearly ready to go the excitement is building but it is also a little bit scary. My family is probably more scared than I am at the moment.”

Guillaume Penot of White Shadow feels uncertain about what’s ahead. “I’ve never been to the South Ocean before so I’m a little uncertain, afraid of the conditions we might have but we will see. The wind and waves, wow, they will be big. But the crew are ready, nine out of 12 have sailed down together so we work well. But none of us has ever been in the Southern Ocean before.”

But there were some who know exactly what they face. Among them is Triana’s first mate Sébastien Audigane who will be heading into the Southern Ocean for the seventh time. “In the Southern Ocean you need to be a good sailor. You need to anticipate the weather because the wind is often very strong and the depression systems pass by very quickly. You have to have a keen eye weather-wise. And then equally, as it’s very cold you need to pay attention to being well dressed, you need to eat well and just be a good sailor really. I think it’s the most dangerous because the depressions pass by really quickly and the sea changes angle several times a day, which means you can have crossing seas which make it difficult to make the boat progress forwards. But I am not nervous, I like the Southern Ocean.”

The Ocean Globe Race started at MDL’s Ocean Village Marina, Southampton UK on September 10th, 2023, and is a 27,000-mile sprint around the Globe divided into four legs. The fleet is divided in three classes for a total of 14 entries. Stopovers include Cape Town in South Africa, Auckland in New Zealand, and Punta del Este in Uruguay, before finishing back to the UK in April 2024. In September, a crew member from Triana was rescued by helicopter after slipping on deck. Stéphane Raguenes’ condition had deteriorated overnight from injuries sustained the day before.

Main image, jockeying for position at the start line under the watchful eye of the French Frigate Floréal, courtesy of OGR2023 / Marco Ausderau.

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