After yet another sailor has been dismasted and had to be rescued, is it about time that the ethos of the Golden Globe Race was reviewed?
I know that in the warm comfort of a lounge on land, the idea of pitting one's wits against the sea using technology only found in the original golden globe might have seemed a good one. Through rose tinted glasses recent history looks quite attractive, but to be realistic you'd have to bring back Polio, Ricketts, Dyptheria and Smallpox. I mean, just how realistic do you want it to be?
In the case of the Golden Globe race, the sea is no less dangerous, so why are we putting people in old boats, with old technology, with old levels of risk and reliability?
There's a reason the modern sailing technology in materials and electronics we have now has been developed: to make sailing the world safer and more reliable. But even given modern technology, the sea is a dangerous place and has claimed victims.
I really think given the numbers of failures, incidents and rescues that this race has generated, that it really needs to be consigned to history where that technology belongs.
