She is a sloop or cutter of glass fibre in isophthalic resin, given a bigger rig than Griffiths drew, and designed for safety and comfort at sea, with a shoal draught her owners take into shallows and the French canals: certainly not a racer, neither slow, in her broker’s words; rather narrow and under-canvassed, in the race’s.
Hermes Phoning, the long-keel version of the Mark II and Arnaud Gaist’s home since 2017, raced in 2022. In the South Atlantic in late November her mast was bending and its base moving, a lower shroud needed tightening and the bobstay fitting was under stress, so that she could not safely sail to windward; with barnacles on her hull as well, she turned for St Helena and home on 1 Dec 2022. The design is not on the race’s list for 2026.
One boat, one race, and Hermes Phoning turned for home in the South Atlantic: what the race has measured of her is thin.
Her one past start: retired in the South Atlantic, west of Cape Town, day 88.
One started: ended early.
From 24 Nov 2022 Arnaud Gaist reported a mast and rigging problem (the mast bending, its base moving, a lower shroud needing tightening, the bobstay fitting under stress) that made sailing to windward unsafe, on a hull slowed by heavy barnacle growth. On 1 Dec, reckoning that at that pace Cape Horn would come in April and that Cape Town could not be reached in time to repair and still make the Hobart gate, the skipper diverted towards St Helena and retired; the race’s 9 Dec article, written 200 miles from St Helena, adds that about 150 days of provisions remained aboard.
In 8 kt of wind and more, where she and the other designs have twenty legs or more each, she was behind in every such wind and angle: least behind on a close reach in 12–16 kt, −13%, and most behind reaching in 16–20 kt, −28%.
| Wind | upwind 0–60° | close reach 60–90° | reaching 90–130° | broad reach 130–160° | running 160–180° | Legs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 145 | ||||||
| 126 | ||||||
| – | 157 | |||||
| – | 71 | |||||
| – | 25 |
What the record and the figures support, point by point, and what they weigh against her.
“Very seakindly with a comfortable motion”, “superb stowage”, and owners who keep her for many years, on the YBW forums; “quality construction”, in the broker’s archive.
Three for sale on Apollo Duck in Britain in September 2026, from seven and a half to thirty-two thousand pounds.
On the broker’s archive sheet (Yachtsnet) she displaces 5,588 kg, under the Notice of Race’s minimum of about 6,200 kg (J.1.1); the race’s own page printed her at 6,900 kg, the figure this page uses. She raced in 2022 though that year’s Notice of Race did not print her among its approved designs (5.1.1), and she is not among them for 2026 (J.1.2).
“Rather tender” from the enlarged rig, “lacks power for her displacement”, “a tendency to hobbyhorse”, “no goer to windward”: the review and the owners.
Sail area to displacement 14.3, 14th of 17, on this page’s figures; draft 1.22 m, 17th of 17.
Like for like her boats measured −19% against the other designs in the same wind and angle.
A water tank of a hundred and thirty-five litres on a Mark II of 1994, against the race’s minimum of two hundred and sixty litres of drinking water (Notice of Race K.2.1).
Hermes Phoning’s race ended with the mast bending, its base moving, a lower shroud needing tightening and the bobstay fitting under stress, which Yachting Monthly took to suggest deeper trouble with the symmetry and compression of the whole rig: the rig of that boat, not necessarily the design’s.
- Yachtsnet’s archive page on the Barbican 33 (the origin, the yard, the construction, the figures)
- Yachting Monthly, “Barbican 33 boat review” (24 Sep 2009), and the YBW forums, “Barbican 33” and “Barbican query” (the owners)
- The race’s skipper page for Arnaud Gaist, its 2022 timeline and “Arnaud Gaist out of the GGR!”, 9 Dec 2022, goldengloberace.com
- Yachting Monthly: the 2022 profile of Arnaud Gaist; “I am amazed I am still in the race”, 1 Dec 2022
- Apollo Duck’s British listings, September 2026 (the used market, the keels), and Network Yacht Brokers’ sheet for a Mark II of 1994 (the tank)
- Notice of Race 2022–23, 25 Apr 2022: 5.1.1 (the approved designs)
- Notice of Race 2026: J.1.1 (the minimum displacement), J.1.2 (the approved designs) and K.2.1 (drinking water)
- The figures: the race's skipper page (Arnaud Gaist) for the length, waterline, draft and displacement (9.96 m, 7.72 m, 1.22 m, 6,900 kg); beam, ballast and sail area from Yachtsnet's archive sheet, the broker's (9 ft 7 in, 5,600 lb, 550 sq ft for the sloop), since the race's page repeats her waterline as her beam and prints no sail area; the first year from Yachtsnet; no builder's document survives. Yachtsnet's archive sheet prints 12,320 lb (5,588 kg) for displacement and 5,600 lb of ballast; the ballast share here is that sheet's own, 45%.
Why her races ended:
- Golden Globe Race, skipper page “Arnaud Gaist” (“Retired: 1 December 2022 – rigging issue”; mast compression, Cape Town and the Hobart gate of 31 Jan 2023)
- Golden Globe Race, “GGR Timeline 2022” (entries of 24 Nov and 1 Dec 2022)
- Golden Globe Race, “Arnaud Gaist out of the GGR! Broken sextants and time take their toll!” (9 Dec 2022; the Gaist paragraphs only — the broken sextant in the article is Elliott Smith’s)
- Yachting Monthly, “Golden Globe Race: 'I am amazed I am still in the race'” (1 Dec 2022)
- Wikipedia, “2022 Golden Globe Race” (pointer; prints the retirement as 2 Dec 2022 citing GGR “Day 89”, and the yacht as Feï of Shanghaï)
What the figures mean. Waterline: the longer, the faster a heavy hull can go. Hull speed: 1.34 × √waterline in feet, the old rule of thumb. Displacement to length: above 300 is heavy; every design here is but the OE 32. Sail area to displacement: under 16 is under-canvassed by modern lights. The middle line is the median of the designs that have the figure: seventeen, or fewer where a source does not give it. Lengths are printed to the centimetre and areas to a tenth of a square metre, whatever the source’s own precision, and the ratios are worked from the figures as printed here.
How she is measured. Every 4-hour leg with a model wind on which the boat was moving (0.2 kt and more): this race’s since the start, and each boat’s whole race in 2018 and 2022, to her finish or her retirement (what a boat sailed after she retired is not counted). A leg’s wind is the model wind at its two ends, averaged as vectors, so its speed is that of the mean wind (a few legs of 2018 and 2022 carry the wind at one end only). The past races have no ocean current, so all three are measured alike: speed over the ground, and the wind’s angle off the course made good. Like for like sets each leg against the other designs’ legs of the same race in the same 3 kt of wind and 15° of angle; the heat map and the polar set her median in each wind and angle, over all her legs there, against the other designs’ medians in the races she sailed, each race weighted by her legs in it. Every figure is a median, and each measures the boat as she was sailed: the sailor, her sails and the state of her hull are in it, a hull under barnacles too. More on the Method page.