IT'S early evening on April 27. The waters are calm off Les Sable d'Olonne, France, and out from the fog emerges the 36-foot cutter Minnehaha. The one soul on board is 40-year-old South African Kirsten Neuschäfer-the Golden Globe Race's heroine and, at this moment, the first woman to win a solo around-the-world race.
Exactly 235 days earlier, as the lone female in a fleet of 16 seasoned singlehanded sailors, she'd set forth from France with a singular objective, and as she crossed the finish line, she may well have been the person least surprised by the outcome. After all, from the moment she'd entered the unique "retro" high-seas, high-stakes contest, she was in it to win it-never mind that she'd never raced offshore in her entire life.
"When I signed up for the race, I had an interesting chat with a very experienced racing sailor who asked, 'Why are you doing it? Just to go around? Or are your doing it to win?" she told me in the afterglow of her victory.
"And I said, 'Well, isn't everybody doing it to win?' And he said, 'No, people do it for different reasons. If you want to win, your preparation will be different. You'll choose your boat accordingly. If you need more money, you'll need to raise more funds. You're going to spend much more time preparing, but your goal will be different. To win, not just sail around the world.' And that's how it was in my mind right from the start."
The contemporary Golden Globe Race, having completed its second edition after an inaugural running in 2018, is a throwback "adventure race" that pays homage to the 1968 competition of the same name, won by British legend Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the lone finisher after a voyage of 312 days, during which he became the first sailor to circle the globe alone and without stopping.
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