History of the GGR
Robin’s race was a seemingly endless series of dramas, failures, broken gear and near catastrophe. In fact, the voyage went from bad to worse: a serious leak just two weeks into the race, the unwelcome attention of a shark he finally had to shoot, a debilitating attack of jaundice, a massive knock-down in the Southern Ocean throwing him and everything else on board all over the cabin, a complete failure of his wind-vane self-steering gear requiring him to hand-steer from Australia back to England, and then another storm and near dismasting during which Suhaili was suffering so much Robin prepared to launch his liferaft. But for Robin, this race was not just about finishing. He believed he could win. He kept in touch with how the other competitors were doing as often as was possible via single-sideband radio, but that too failed long before the finish. He didn’t know for sure that he was going to win until he was close to Falmouth. He landed to a hero’s welcome and massive public acclaim... and eventually, after other achievements, a well-deserved knighthood.

None of the other eight competitors finished the race, but they all had powerful stories of their own. Some pulled out with damage to their boats or themselves. Frenchman Bernard Moitessier, who along with three other competitors, had started from Plymouth, decided he’d had enough of civilisation and, ‘to save my soul’, decided to continue sailing round the Southern Ocean rather than return to Europe. He eventually dropped anchor in a Tahiti lagoon. British sailor Donald Crowhurst began to falsify his positions early in the race. He eventually decided to hide in the waters around the Falkland Islands and planned to sail back to the UK behind whoever would win (to avoid too much scrutiny). It looked like this would be another British sailor, Nigel Tetley; but his boat sank 1,200 miles from home. Crowhurst’s deception (and the fear of being found out) drove him to commit suicide. His story is told in the book The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, and soon to be released full-length Hollywood feature film, The Mercy.

1969 was a year for extraordinary firsts. It was also the year in which Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon. Many more people have been in space since then than have completed a solo non-stop circumnavigation under sail. And no one has yet repeated Sir Robin's achievement with the kind of small boat and traditional equipment he had. So, the 2018 Golden Globe Race will make history as well as repeat it.