Name Carl Huber
Born December 29th 1960 – Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
Domicile Frederick, Maryland, USA
Country of entry USA
A deep thinking computer science university lecturer, Carl Huber discovered sailing a little late in life. He did not set foot on a boat until he was 40, and it soon taught him that many of the things he had always dreamed of were achievable. After taking sailing courses on the Chesapeake and in the US Virgin Islands, he began bareboat chartering in the Caribbean where he formulated plans to use small sailboats to transport goods cleanly and inexpensively in support of impoverished areas like Haiti.
A circumnavigation has been a lifelong dream and Huber intends to use the Golden Globe Race to bring attention to the size and fragility of the planet and the potential to put untapped natural resources like wind to work in practical and creative ways.
To complete his 8,000 sailing mile qualifying distance, Carl joined the crew of the former Whitbread Round the World Race yacht Ceramco New Zealand from the Caribbean through the Panama Canal back to her home port of Auckland.
Huber is using his participation in the GGR to call attention to an ideal he often thinks about. He sees many of our problems as human beings, individually and collectively, are a product of how we relate to the planet and if we were able to see things through a different prism, we would all be better for it.
He says: “We do not relate to our planet as a symbiotic organism. We relate as an adversarial organism—humanity against the planet. We take advantage of earth instead of living in harmony with it… I think we need to fundamentally change the way we think of ourselves in relationship to the planet. The ultimate question of what should be done with a human life, or how a life should best be used, led me to the 2018 GGR. My entry has evoked the single most significant change in my life since my first child was born. It has allowed me to turn from a career and livelihood from which I have wanted to flee for many years, but I am ashamed to say, to which I have held myself in bondage by the illusion of security and necessity.”
Boat
Name Jamma Jeanne
Type Ta Shing Baba 35 Masthead ketch
Race No 99
Designer Robert Perry
Builder Ta Shing Shipyards (TAIWAN)
LOA 34.83ft / 10.62m
LWL 29.58ft / 9.02m
Beam 11.17ft / 3.40m
Draft 5.50ft / 1.68m
Displacement 21140 lbs / 9589 kgs
Sail area 758sq. ft / 70.42sq. m
Carl Huber selected the Ta Shing built Bob Perry designed Babe 35 class yacht Jamma Jeanne in 2016, and sailed her from the US Virgin Islands, across to the Chesapeake where he spent two years preparing her for the GGR. He planned to relaunch her in March 2018 prior to a shakedown trial south to Tampa, Florida via Bermuda before setting out across the Atlantic bound for Falmouth and on to Les Sables d’Olonne for the start.
News
Feb 1st, 2018: Latest post on Facebook from the Balboa Yacht Club in Panama City: “Going insane as Ceramco’s autopilot is going to be repaired tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ... booked a flight home for tomorrow so it’s either sail tomorrow or bust. Westernmost end of canal behind me.”
Feb 22, 2018. We’ve heard nothing since so assume Ceramco did set sail for Auckland with Huber still aboard!
http://ggr2018huber.com/
https://www.facebook.com/carl.huber.92