She was built by yards and by amateurs alike. Windboats in Norfolk built her in ferro-cement, Stratimer on the Canal du Midi and Belliure in Spain in glassfibre, De Kleer in Canada, and amateurs in many countries in wood, steel, aluminium and glass. The count runs from a few hundred to more than eight hundred depending on who is counting, and she was stretched over the years to fifty feet and more.
So no two are alike: sloop, cutter, ketch or schooner, and in England many were built as motor sailors, steered from inside a raised pilot house. For the Golden Globe the hull must be glassfibre (Notice of Race J.1.1), and a pilot house or a centre cockpit may not be approved (J.1.2).
Three of her hulls have come to the race: two ketches in 2018, Francesco Cappelletti’s 007, withdrawn before the start and sailed on outside the race, and Igor Zaretskiy’s Esmeralda, stopped in Western Australia under a coat of barnacles; and Help Disabled Children in 2026, a Stratimer sloop of 1977 rebuilt from the deck core down, which turned for Cádiz when her long-range radio failed.
Esmeralda stopped in Western Australia and Help Disabled Children in Cádiz: most of what the race has measured of her is one hull, Esmeralda, sailed to Albany under a growing coat of barnacles.
Her one past start: retired at Albany, Western Australia, day 164.
One started: ended early.
The high-frequency radio failed overnight on 18–19 Sep 2026 (the race director said on air that the antenna tuner unit, not the set, appeared to be at fault) and Selim Yalcin, judging it unsafe to continue without it, turned for Cádiz, reaching port on 22 Sep with the intention of repairing it and continuing in Chichester class. A replacement Icom 801 was located, but transporting, installing and testing it, including modifying the radio’s waterproof compartment, would take at least four more days, and with the gap to the fleet growing the skipper withdrew on 25 Sep rather than continue in Chichester class.
One started: ended early.
Esmeralda grew a thick coat of barnacles that could not be removed at sea and slowed her badly (Igor Zaretskiy blamed the antifouling: a bottom wash two days before the start without a fresh coat, and later a hard paint that did not erode at the boat’s speed), a forestay broke on 22 Oct 2018, and on 12 Dec 2018 the skipper put into Albany, hauled out to clean the hull and replace the forestay, and moved to Chichester class with a restart planned for 17 Dec. A medical check in Australia (an enlarged lymph node near a kidney, by the skipper’s later account) sent Zaretskiy home to Moscow for treatment, the boat never sailed on, and the race published the withdrawal from the Chichester class on 3 Oct 2019.
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 20–25 kt, −3%, and most behind reaching in 12–16 kt, −49%.
| Wind | upwind 0–60° | close reach 60–90° | reaching 90–130° | broad reach 130–160° | running 160–180° | Legs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 211 | ||||||
| 231 | ||||||
| 254 | ||||||
| 187 | ||||||
| – | 138 | |||||
| – | – | 39 |
What the record and the figures support, point by point, and what they weigh against her.
Displacement 8,414 kg, 9th of 17 of the designs that have raced; displacement to length 436, 3rd of 17.
Yachting Monthly’s test of 1971: not close-winded and needing a breeze to get going, but she handles well and can plough on through weather. Unicornio, a Stratimer hull, worked as a charter boat in Patagonia, South Georgia and the Antarctic.
Sail area to displacement 16.8, 3rd of 17 of the designs that have raced.
Seven hundred litres of water on her design sheet, well over the race’s minimum (Notice of Race K.2.1), and in the test of 1971 six or seven berths in three cabins, with full headroom under the doghouse. A given hull may differ: Help Disabled Children races with new stainless tanks glassed into her hull.
Hundreds built, and listed for sale in Britain in September 2026 from under eight thousand pounds to forty-five thousand, most of them ferro-cement; a restored glassfibre hull was listed at thirty-seven and a half thousand. The glassfibre hulls the race requires must be picked out from the ferro-cement and the steel.
Built by many yards and many amateurs in five materials, and the race approves the design only: the build quality of any one boat is the participant’s to answer for (Notice of Race J.1.2). The deck, chainplates and rudder of 007 were replaced before 2018, and the rotten balsa core of Help Disabled Children’s deck before 2026.
Waterline 8.13 m on 10.67 m overall, 12th of 17; hull speed 6.9 kt, 12th of 17.
Like for like her boats measured −31% against the other designs in the same wind and angle.
Most of those legs are Esmeralda’s of 2018, sailed under the barnacles below.
Esmeralda’s antifouling was a paint made for fast boats: at her speed, in Igor Zaretskiy’s words, there was not enough water pressure to erode its surface, and she reached Western Australia in 2018 under a coat of barnacles too thick to remove at sea.
Her one past start did not finish. Another hull, Francesco Cappelletti’s 007, was entered for 2018 but did not start; sailing on outside the race with satellite phone and GPS, 007 headed for Brazil after her wind vane broke.
- Sailboat Guide, “Peter A. Ibold” (the designer, the competition of 1970)
- 1001 Boats, “Endurance 35” (the yards, the materials, the rigs, the stretched designs, Unicornio in the Antarctic)
- yachtdatabase, “Endurance 35” (a few hundred built)
- Yachting Monthly, “Endurance 35”, the test report of March 1971
- The HarborMoor and Hisse-et-Oh design sheets (tankage, ballast, the figures)
- Yachting Monthly, “Dr. Selim Yalcin in his own words” (more than eight hundred built; the rebuild of 2025; the tanks)
- The race’s skipper pages for Igor Zaretskiy, Francesco Cappelletti and Selim Yalcin, its reports of the 2018 withdrawal and retirement, and its race timeline of 2026 (the radio and Cádiz), goldengloberace.com
- Yachting Monthly, “Golden Globe Race: Leader Van Den Heede predicts 03 October stop at Hobart”, 5 Sep 2018 (Cappelletti’s wind vane and Brazil)
- Windpilot’s blog on Esmeralda (the maker’s own account of the barnacles)
- Apollo Duck listings, September 2026 (the used market)
- Notice of Race 2026: J.1.1 (glassfibre construction), J.1.2 (the approved designs; build quality; pilot house and centre cockpit) and K.2.1 (drinking water)
- The figures: the race's skipper pages for her three hulls, Selim Yalcin's sloop and the ketches of Igor Zaretskiy and Francesco Cappelletti, which agree (10.67 m, 8.13 m, 3.28 m, 1.75 m, 8,414 kg, 68.37 m²); ballast from sailboatdata's sheet, read through Boatsector and HarborMoor (7,716 lb, 3,500 kg), the race's pages printing none; the builders from the race's pages, the 1977 from Yachting Monthly; the year drawn from 1001 Boats. Sailboatdata's sheet prints 10.75 m overall, 11.00 ft (3.35 m) of beam, a draft of 5.00 ft (1.52 m), a first year of 1969 and 86 built, and Hisse-et-Oh's sheet a draft of 1.60 m and 3,600 kg of ballast; the race's pages print one set of figures for a sloop and two ketches, a design's figures and not a hull's.
Why her races ended:
- Golden Globe Race, “Race Timeline” (entry of 19 Sep 2026)
- Golden Globe Race, daily report “GGR 2026: Day 16” (22 Sep 2026)
- Golden Globe Race, daily report “GGR 2026: Day 19” (25 Sep 2026)
- Golden Globe Race, “Tropical Storm Gonzalo collides with McIntyre GGR fleet” (25 Sep 2026)
- Golden Globe Race skipper page, “Selim Yalcin” (status: Retired)
- Golden Globe Race on Facebook, tracker update 25 Sep 2026 20:00 UTC
- Golden Globe Race on Facebook, official announcement of the retirement, 26 Sep 2026
- Golden Globe Race on YouTube, Day 13 tracker update (19 Sep 2026), 0:05:41 and 0:08:15
- Golden Globe Race on YouTube, Day 14 tracker update (20 Sep 2026), 0:13:40
- Go Boating NZ, “Golden Globe Race loses two contenders to Chichester class after a frightening night off Lanzarote” (20 Sep 2026)
- Sports-Addict, “Golden Globe Race. « Une décision difficile » : il est contraint à l’abandon au sud de l’Espagne” (26 Sep 2026)
- Golden Globe Race, “Bigger coverage for 2022 GGR and Igor Zaretskiy out” (3 Oct 2019)
- Golden Globe Race, “DAY 164 – Lead narrows between Mark Slats and Jean-Luc Van Den Heede” (12 Dec 2018)
- Golden Globe Race, “2018 GGR” timeline (entries 6 Aug, 15 Oct, 22 Oct, 12 Dec, 17 Dec 2018)
- Scuttlebutt Sailing News, “Golden Globe: Never a dull moment” (12 Dec 2018)
- Scuttlebutt Sailing News, “Narrowing lead in the Golden Globe Race” (3 Dec 2018)
- Yachting Monthly, “Golden Globe Race: Major storm bares down on Istvan Kopar” (13 Dec 2018)
- Yachting Monthly, “Golden Globe Race: Uku Randmaa rounds Cape Horn” (19 Dec 2018)
- Windpilot blog (manufacturer’s blog, quoting the skipper), “Getting to the truth” (26 Jan 2020)
- Golden Globe Race skipper page, “Igor Zaretskiy” (status: Out)
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.