Heroic. Do not be scarred by words, Kirsten Neuschafer achieved a real feat by winning the Golden Globe Race on Thursday evening, a race around the world alone. Even more than the fact of becoming the first woman to impose herself on this format, the simple description of what this race is enough to measure the greatness of what the South African sailor has accomplished: a circumnavigation of the globe alone , non-stop, without assistance and without technological means, forcing them to navigate “the old fashioned way”, with a sextant, a chart table or a compass, all without a telephone and therefore without news of their loved ones. Probably one of the toughest tests in sport, in any case the longest.
Leaving on September 4, Kirsten Neuschäfer will have spent nearly eight months at sea, aboard a small 35-year-old monohull called Minnehaha, which has withstood all storms. 233 days away from it all, on her own, to the finish line in Les Sables-d’Olonne. The party at 9:43 p.m. was great, with endless applause and the cracking of a good packet of smoke to greet the skipper. And the presence of his mother, who would not have missed this moment for anything in the world.
“He was the person I really wanted to see the most when I arrived, who I thought about the most, especially at the end, launched the 41-year-old South African, very moved, a few minutes after setting foot. down. I am full of joy, to see everyone here, this extraordinary atmosphere, I spend a moment that only happens once in a lifetime. If I held on, it’s thanks to all of you, thank you. I was alone during all these months but I knew that people were dreaming with me, were there in thought, it makes all the difference in difficult times. »
Because of course there were. The calm in the doldrums, when you feel like the wind will never come that you’ll spend the rest of your life stuck in the middle of the ocean, the stormy southern seas, and the fear of losing a colleague and friend, too. In the Atlantic, she diverted to rescue Finnish Tapio Lehtinen, adrift in his lifeboat after his boat sank. “It’s extremely difficult to find a life raft at sea when things are moving. I couldn’t see anything, she said this Friday morning, after a night’s sleep spent… on her boat. There was 15 to 20 knots of wind, swell, big hollows. I tried to get as close to his canoe as possible, and we finally got there. »
A boat chartered by the organization then picked up the unfortunate sailor, then Kirsten continued on her way, one day after another, never quite the same, even if a certain routine had to be respected: getting up at dawn, coffee, a tour of the owner to check that there is nothing to repair, then adjustment of the navigation devices to try to assess where the following hours will take her. “And then sleep a little too, when you can, because you never know what the following night will hold,” describes the sailor.
Jumps in the water, reading and bird visits
Obviously, lonely during all this time, she had to look deep inside herself for the resources not to crack. His secrets? Sometimes a small jump in the water to swim, “a way to clear my mind, to get away from the race a bit”, she says. And then reading, especially historical fiction books, her favorites, and then the book of the winner of the previous edition (2019), the Frenchman Jean-Luc Van Den Heede, “little pleasure” which she kept for the last straight line, after crossing Rio de la Plata (the estuary on the border between Argentina and Uruguay).
The navigator was also able to take advantage of these suspended moments, when there is nothing else to do but admire the surrounding nature. “The most special thing is when I passed Cape Town (South Africa), I was a little adrift but I said to myself ‘it’s okay, look around you’. There were whales, dolphins, seals. It was wonderful. The few birds that visited him on his boat will also have a special place. There were always a few living beings to chat with.
So here is Kirsten Neuschäfer, at the end of the adventure of a lifetime, in the pantheon of great navigators in history alongside Florence Arthaud, Isabelle Autissier, Ellen MacArthur or even Catherine Chabaud, the first woman to complete a round the world trip in solo sailing during the 1996 Vendée Globe and came to Les Sables to welcome him. Of the 16 starters, only two other sailors – the Indian Abhilash Tomy and the Austrian Michael Guggenberger – are still in contention, expected in the coming days. A fourth, the Briton Simon Curwen, has already crossed the line, but out of the race after being forced to make a stopover in Chile to repair damage.
Kirsten Neuschäfer will now return home, to see her family and her dogs that she has missed so much. She is already planning a short trip to the wild coast not far from Port Elizabeth, which she defines as her “little corner of paradise”. Alone, but with her feet firmly on the ground this time.