After a prologue between Lorient and Cadiz won by the duo Ian Lipinski/Antoine Carpentier (Crédit Mutuel), eight crews set sail on Sunday for the first leg of the Globe40 between Cadiz and Mindelo (Cape Verde). Tip & Shaft takes stock of the second edition of this double-handed round-the-world race in Class40 with organiser Manfred Ramspacher and some of the participants.
A total of 37 sailors (with the possibility of changing crew members at each leg) from 12 different countries are competing in the eight Class40 boats at the start, only two of which are flying the French flag. “We are by far the French race that brings together the most foreigners,” says Manfred Ramspacher. For this second edition, “the projects are better constructed and better prepared, with some boats having been purchased two or three years ago,” he continues. “There are also eight great stories to tell, with some amazing personalities, such as Brazilian President Lula’s neurosurgeon aboard the 151 Barco Brasil and the two young Germans Melwin Fink and Lennart Burke.”
Aged 23 and 26, they are competing in the race on the Pogo S4 Next Generation Boating-Around the World, encouraged by their compatriot Boris Herrmann, “who convinced us to go for it,” they say. Herrmann himself completed a double-handed, multi-leg round-the-world race in a Class40 yacht in 2008-2009, the Global Ocean Race. “We want to become the youngest team in history to sail around the world,” they add.
The dates and format of the event have changed slightly since the first edition (2022-2023), with a shorter race – from 9 to 8 months – to make it “more accessible“, says Manfred Ramspacher, and “a start in September instead of June to benefit from better conditions for the southernmost points of passage, the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn”. Of the six legs that make up the 30,000-mile course, three cities have renewed their participation: “Lorient [where the prologue started on 4 September, four days late due to the weather, editor’s note], Recife and Mindelo. The other three – Le Port in Réunion, Sydney and Valparaiso – required a lot of work upstream with prospecting, travel and location scouting,” summarises the organiser.
Reunion Island in the race
The Réunion stage was made possible thanks to the involvement of local skipper Thibaut Lefevere, who was sailing aboard the Sabrosa 40 Free Dom. “When I met Manfred Ramspacher on the pontoons of the CIC Normandy Channel Race in 2020, I suggested the idea of stopping in Réunion rather than Mauritius [where the first edition ended, editor’s note],’ he says. We worked together to make this happen, and today there is a great deal of enthusiasm on the island, which will host an offshore race finish for the first time, with a large village set up for three weeks.” For the skipper, the finalisation of this stopover was also “a good opportunity to find local sponsors”, which convinced him to enter the Globe40 with a 100% Reunion Island crew, consisting of Maxime Bourcier, Victor Jost and François Martin.
A few rules have been changed since the first edition, such as the points classification system, which has been revised to favour crews who complete the entire course, and the removal of the minimum 24-hour stop rule in the event of a stopover, which “risked discouraging some crews from stopping in the event of damage or difficult or dangerous conditions”, explains Manfred Ramspacher. A ranking system for older boats has also been introduced to highlight the five boats concerned, which are competing for the first time in this Globe40 against scows. “This is an important development” notes Manfred Ramspacher. “Number 44 [Sec Hayai, launched in 2007, skippered by Dutchmen Frans Budel and Ysbrand Endt, editor’s note] won the first race, and in this edition we welcome three scows, 187, 189 and 202.”
The latter, designed by David Raison and launched in 2024 (Crédit Mutuel), is skippered by Ian Lipinski who, in Tip & Shaft #324, said he wanted “to do something different. With the Globe40, I feel like I’m setting off on an adventure again. We’ll have to complete a series of legs, the equivalent of seven or eight transatlantic races, without being able to return to the pit stop in Lorient. So that will require a new rhythm.” His Belgian competitor Jonas Gerckens, who is competing on the Lift V2 Belgium Ocean Racing-Curium, shares the same enthusiasm: “I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and the classic transatlantic circuits to explore a different way of sailing, other seas, other weather systems and other populations.”
A first for scows
However, the arrival of scows in this race raises a few unknowns, as acknowledged by Ian Lipinski, whose co-skippers are Antoine Carpentier and Amélie Grassi: “We can’t be sure that these modern Class40s will be able to complete so many legs in potentially very demanding conditions. It’s a real question as to how they will cope with the course.” In order to anticipate the regular shocks over such distances, Jonas Gerckens, accompanied by Renaud Dehareng (also the boat’s owner and main sponsor with his company Curium), Benoit Hantzberg and Djemila Tassin, explains that the Belgian team “has reinforced the overall structure, especially at the front of the boat“.
This work is in addition to that required by the race organisers, namely “the creation of two additional bulkheads to provide five watertight compartments on board the boat,” explains Manfred Ramspacher. The aim is to make these Class40s safer, without modifying them too much or making them too heavy. “This preparation has been a new challenge,” says Jonas Gerckens, whose project has a total budget of €1 million over two years. “In terms of logistics, we have tried to anticipate the spare parts that will be needed in case of breakages, and two preparers will be present at each stage.”
Within the Free Dom team, although no preparers will be travelling around the world, Thibaut Lefevere points out that “major work was carried out over the winter to reinforce the bulkheads and mast and create a new, more protected canopy with a watch seat. It was a real small business to manage on a daily basis for three years with a budget of €720,000.” For its part, the organisation relies on a team of 10 to 15 people to handle the race, technical assistance, communication and general logistics at each stage. The overall budget – between €1.5 and €2 million – is 75% funded by the stopover towns, 20% by registration fees (€20,000 per crew) and the rest by various other sources. The race starts this Sunday at 1pm for a 1,540-mile leg between Cadiz and Mindelo.
Photo : Jean-Marie Liot / Globe40
