GUpdate

We cannot believe it has been almost 3 weeks since Guy Waites slipped his lines in Les Sables d’Olonne and started his ultimate dream and challenge of the Golden Globe Race 2022!

For those who don’t know, the Golden Globe race, is a single handed, non-stop, around the world race, using celestial navigation and NO mod cons! Skippers have to carry all their food, water, absolutely anything they will need for their possible 9 months at sea (*Gulp*), definitely no mean feat that’s for sure!

When we heard about Guy wanting to enter the race, we couldn’t wait to support him. It’s not very often, in a sleepy seaside town, do you come across someone taking on such a mammoth challenge. So naturally, we wanted to get involved and support Guy as a sponsor and also, as it turns out, deck hands, bottom scrubbers (boat only!), electronics advisors, tea makers, fundraisers, photo takers to name a few!

As you will have hopefully seen from our socials, we have more or less been with Guy from the beginning of his sponsorship journey.

Guy bought Sagarmatha in Panama, BUT, guess what? The pandemic hit! As soon as he possibly could, he flew to Panama to start the 5000+ mile journey home to Scarborough, well eventually. As Guy was entering the Azores he was flattened by a wave and bent his mast (that’s the big bit that sticks up in the middle!).

Undeterred Guy made a temporary fix and limped his way home. Now I’m sure, like us, you’re thinking “nope that’s it, I’ve had enough!”. Not Guy, it was just probably more the inconvenience and of course expense of a new one.

So once back on the beautiful Yorkshire coast, Guy set about stripping the boat of all its wares so he could begin the enormous task of getting his boat ready for the race.

Jump in Helen, Simon’s other half, “how amazing would it be if we helped Guy? He really needs us, he can’t raise all this money on his own” queue Simon melting into the sofa as Helen texts Guy. And the journey began.

Fast forward, to August 2022, after a lot of events, head banging, tears and laughter, Simon met Guy in Gijon, Spain for the SiTran Prologue race to Les Sables d’Olonne, France. Sounds glamourous hey? Well Guy definitely put our Simon to work, as there was still a lot to do and get ready. After a great sail to France Guy spent another two weeks working his way through his list of jobs, meeting fans, media interviews, you name it, it was all going on. Simon and Helen then spent the last few days before the race doing supermarket runs, finding lined paper (yes, apparently the French aren’t down with lined paper!), visiting the chandlery daily for bits and of course the most important thing, feeding Guy! Even in the hours before Guy was due to set off he managed to get Simon in the water scrubbing the bottom, the boat not Guy’s!

Lines slipped and we waved Guy off! A bitter sweet moment knowing we wouldn’t see Guy for at least 7 months. It was definitely a spectacular sight to see from the spectator boat!

Since the start, Damien Guillou had to turn back for a repair, poor Aleix was out before he could leave (mast supply issue), Edward has decided now is just not the right time to compete and took the tough decision to retire and Guy de Boer had an unfortunate race ending when he ran aground. So it’s all been going on!

Currently Guy is off the coast of Africa, winging his way to the next media drop in South Africa! He is currently lying in a respectable 7th position but it is all very close at the minute and anything can happen! The bay of Biscay was a challenging time for the fleet, but we are pleased to hear from the weekly phone call and daily tweets that all is well on Sagarmatha and Guy is in good spirits, especially now he has started diving into his Christmas Cake!

You can follow Guy’s progress at https://goldengloberace.com/live-tracker/ and receive daily updates from the GGR team. Or stay tuned with us for the updates over the next few months!