Sunday Times Golden Globe Race - Genesis of The Race

Genesis of The Race

Long-distance single-handed sailing has its beginnings in the nineteenth century, when a number of sailors made notable single-handed crossings of the Atlantic. The first single-handed circumnavigation of the world was made by Joshua Slocum, between 1895 and 1898, and many sailors have since followed in his wake, completing leisurely circumnavigations with numerous stopovers. However, the first person to tackle a single-handed circumnavigation as a speed challenge was Sir Francis Chichester, who, in 1960, had co-founded the Observer Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race (OSTAR).

In 1966, Chichester set out to sail around the world by the clipper route, starting and finishing in England with a stop in Sydney, in an attempt to beat the speed records of the clipper ships in a small boat. His voyage was a great success, as he set an impressive round-the-world time of nine months and one day — with 226 days of sailing time — and, soon after his return to England on 28 May 1967, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. Even before his return, however, a number of other sailors had turned their attention to the next logical challenge — a non-stop single-handed circumnavigation of the world.