Cecil Lange and Son laid her up by hand, half an inch of glass thickening to an inch at the keel, with the lead cast and glassed inside the keel, and sold her at every stage from bare hull to finished boat, so many hulls were completed by their owners and no two are alike. The yard fell quiet with Lange’s retirement in 2000 and was revived in 2004 as Cape George Marine Works, which still trades under her name.
She is long on the waterline for her length, heavy, and ballasted with lead. Kirsten Neuschäfer chose her for a good ballast-to-weight ratio and a hull and rig that could withstand a hard beat to windward, and has said that the boat “suffers a little in light airs”.
Kirsten Neuschäfer’s Minnehaha, a hull of 1988 found in Newfoundland and re-rigged with an aluminium mast and new chainplates, won the 2022 race. Henry Wootton’s Privateer and Matt Woodside’s Tipi Haere started the 2026 race, Tipi Haere after a preparation voyage of twenty-two thousand miles by way of New Zealand and Cape Horn.
Her one past start finished: much of what the race has measured of her is one boat’s race, and a winner’s at that.
Her one past start: finished on day 235 · the winner.
Two started: both racing now.
One started: finished.
In 8 kt of wind and more, where she and the other designs have twenty legs or more each, her largest gain is running in 25 kt and more, +25%, and her largest loss, upwind in 8–12 kt, −16%.
| Wind | upwind 0–60° | close reach 60–90° | reaching 90–130° | broad reach 130–160° | running 160–180° | Legs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 463 | ||||||
| 430 | ||||||
| 456 | ||||||
| 317 | ||||||
| – | 193 | |||||
| – | – | 113 |
What the record and the figures support, point by point, and what they weigh against her.
Won 2022; her one past start finished.
Kirsten Neuschäfer’s reasons for choosing her, as Cruising World reported them: a good ballast-to-weight ratio, and a hull and rig that could withstand a hard beat to windward.
Waterline 9.58 m, 1st of 17 of the designs that have raced; ballast 4,763 kg, 1st of 17, which is 45% of displacement, 6th of 17; hull speed 7.5 kt, 1st of 17.
Half an inch of hand-laid glass thickening to an inch at the keel, the lead cast and glassed inside it: “among the most over-built American production cruising-yacht hulls”, in FairKeel’s buyer’s guide; “incredibly strong fiberglass hulls”, in Ferenc Máté’s words as a Denison listing quotes them.
“The Cape George is extremely well balanced and heaves to nicely”: Matt Woodside, who sails Tipi Haere, to Yachting Monthly before the race. On 26 Sep 2026, keeping to the side of Tropical Storm Gonzalo, Tipi Haere was hove to in 30 kt, the race reported.
Henry Wootton, who sails Privateer, foresees light winds as her “Achilles heel”; Minnehaha “suffers a little in light airs”, in Kirsten Neuschäfer’s words.
Sail area to displacement 15.2, 8th of 17; displacement to length 338, 13th of 17.
Under 8 kt of wind her boats measured −1% against the other designs, and in 20 kt and more +19%.
Displacement 10,660 kg, 1st of 17; sail area 72.5 m², 2nd of 17.
Many hulls were finished by their owners, so ballast, tanks and deck vary boat by boat. On the early hulls the decks were teak over plywood and, until the mid-nineties, the bulwarks were lined with wood; the bulwarks let water in, and rotted plywood can hide beneath sound-looking teak. Before the 2022 race Minnehaha’s teak was stripped from her deck for fear of leaks and her rotten bulwarks pulled, by Kirsten Neuschäfer’s account to 48° North; her original chainplates, anchored in the deck on one bar tied to the bulwark, were replaced by longer ones tied into the hull.
“Hulls are scarce; specific hulls may take time to locate; resale market is thin”, in FairKeel’s buyer’s guide. Two broker’s listings, both now off the market, asked a hundred and thirty thousand dollars for Mariposa, of 1981, and a hundred and forty thousand for Sea G, of 1983.
- The race’s skipper pages for Kirsten Neuschäfer, Henry Wootton and Matt Woodside, and its reports “New Partners and Six Retirements as Qualifier Deadline Looms” (the voyage to the start) and “Tropical Storm Gonzalo collides with McIntyre GGR fleet” (25 Sep 2026), goldengloberace.com
- The race’s tracker update on YouTube of 26 Sep 2026 (Tipi Haere hove to in 30 kt)
- Minnehaha’s own page, kirstenggr.com, and Langan Design, “Minnehaha wins Golden Globe with new rig and chainplates”
- Listings Port’s page on the Cape George 36 and FairKeel’s buyer’s guide (the yard, the layup, the kits, the weak points, the market)
- Seattle Yachts and Denison, two Cape George 36 listings (the construction, the tanks, the prices, the yard’s history, Ferenc Máté on the hulls)
- Cruising World on the 2022 win; 48° North, “Sea Adventurer: An Interview with Kirsten Neuschäfer, Part One” (the refit); Yachting Monthly’s 2026 profiles of Matt Woodside and Henry Wootton
- Notice of Race 2026: J.1.2 (the approved designs) and I.2.4 (seven entries per design)
- The figures: the race's skipper pages for Kirsten Neuschäfer's Minnehaha and Henry Wootton's Privateer and the 2022 winner's own boat page, which agree (36 ft, 31 ft 5 in, 10 ft 6 in, 5.0 ft, 23,500 lb, 780 sq ft); ballast from the winner's boat page (10,500 lb), as sailboatdata's sheet prints it; the builders from the race's pages, the yard's new name of 2004 from Denison's listing; the first year from sailboatdata's sheet and Listings Port. Sailboatdata's sheet and Listings Port print 23,300 lb (10,569 kg) for displacement, and Listings Port 806 sq ft of sail; Minnehaha's own page dates the design to 1974.
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.