She is a masthead sloop with a lead keel, her rudder on its trailing edge, and a long, drawn-out counter, with the lowest freeboard of the 2018 fleet. In her skipper’s words to Yachting World, she was the only boat in the Golden Globe “originally designed for racing”.
One hull raced, twice, both times with Tapio Lehtinen. Asteria, the second of the series, built in 1965 and the oldest yacht in the 2022 fleet, was stripped to a shell before 2018, re-laminated with Kevlar and given five new bulkheads and rigging of twelve millimetres. She finished 2018 without a knockdown, and sank on 18 Nov 2022 south-east of South Africa within minutes, from a leak at the stern that the race’s review could not explain. Her skipper spent a day in the liferaft before Kirsten Neuschäfer in Minnehaha diverted a hundred miles to the rescue.
One boat, two starts: what the race has measured of her is one sailor’s.
Of the two past starts, two passed the Cape of Good Hope, one went round Cape Horn and one finished.
One started: ended early.
At about 07:00 UTC on 18 Nov 2022, in moderate conditions, Tapio Lehtinen woke to a loud bang from the stern and found water flooding in from under the engine and companionway ladder; it rose from knee to waist height within about two minutes, Asteria flooded to deck level in five minutes and went down stern first, and the skipper took to the liferaft within six minutes, to be recovered about 24 hours later by Kirsten Neuschäfer on Minnehaha after a 105 nm diversion. The GGR technical review found no proven cause (“NO PROVEN ANSWER”); the skipper’s own hypotheses were a through-hull fitting failing between the two stern watertight bulkheads, or new sideways loads from the Hydrovane’s steering blade on the 57-year-old stern laminate after some 40,000 miles.
One started: finished.
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 running in 16–20 kt, −1%, and most behind reaching in 8–12 kt, −27%.
| Wind | upwind 0–60° | close reach 60–90° | reaching 90–130° | broad reach 130–160° | running 160–180° | Legs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 345 | ||||||
| 451 | ||||||
| 637 | ||||||
| 387 | ||||||
| 303 | ||||||
| – | 181 |
What the record and the figures support, point by point, and what they weigh against her.
Ballast 51% of her displacement, 2nd of 17 of the designs that have raced; displacement 6,985 kg, 12th of 17.
Drawn from Hestia, a racer under the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s rule, and the design that won the first One Ton Cup; “very similar lines to the Swan 36”, in Yachting World’s words.
In 2018 Asteria was the only finisher not knocked down, steered by a WindPilot vane.
The hulls were built from 1965 into the nineteen-seventies. Delamination was found in Asteria’s deck after she was bought in 2017, and in 2022 she flooded from the aft compartments and sank, the cause unproven; the 2018 strengthening had stopped short of the transom, and her skipper’s guesses are a failed through-hull fitting or the load of a new auxiliary-rudder vane on fifty-seven-year-old laminate after forty thousand miles.
Waterline 7.77 m on 10.97 m overall, 15th of 17, with “the long, drawn out counter”, in Yachting World’s words. Hull speed 6.8 kt, 15th of 17.
Like for like her boats measured −15% against the other designs in the same wind and angle.
Beam 2.95 m, 14th of 17, and the lowest freeboard of the 2018 fleet.
Fifteen built by Yachting World’s count, nineteen by sailboatdata’s and more than fifty by Giornale della Vela’s, all in Italy; two were listed for sale in September 2026, one of them a project in Italy at ten thousand euros.
- Yachting World, “Extraordinary boats: Tapio Lehtinen’s Gaia 36 Asteria” (the lineage, the rebuild, the number built, the oldest of 2022)
- sailboatdata’s sheet (the figures, Hestia and the Swan 36), and Giornale della Vela on Benello’s Sparkman and Stephens boats
- Wikipedia, “One Ton Cup” (the 1965 winner)
- The race’s skipper page for Tapio Lehtinen, and its fact check of Asteria’s final voyage, goldengloberace.com
- Yachting Monthly: “Tapio Lehtinen finishes after 322 days at sea”; “Tapio Lehtinen: lessons from my Golden Globe rescue”
- Classic Sailor, “Golden Globe – the 36ft Rustlers are ahead”, 16 Jul 2018, and Sail-World’s photo 213437 (Christophe Favreau / PPL / GGR): the freeboard
- Listings Port’s Gaia 36 page and Edoardo Napodano’s listing “S&S Benello Gaia”, September 2026 (the lead ballast, the boats for sale)
- Notice of Race 2026: J.1.2 (the approved designs)
- The figures: the race's skipper page (Tapio Lehtinen), which repeats sailboatdata's sheet (10.97 m, 7.77 m, 2.95 m, 1.83 m, 6,985 kg, 540 sq ft or 50.17 m²); ballast from sailboatdata's sheet, read through Boatsector (7,800 lb, 3,538 kg), lead per Listings Port, the race's page printing none; no builder's or designer's sheet was found. The number built is printed as 15, 16 and 19 by different sources.
Why her races ended:
- goldengloberace.com, Fact Check! “ASTERIA’S FINAL VOYAGE” | GGR 2022
- goldengloberace.com, Tapio Lehtinen DISTRESS activation in the Golden Globe Race (18 Nov 2022)
- goldengloberace.com, Successful Southern Ocean rescue, Golden Globe sailor Tapio Lehtinen (19 Nov 2022)
- Yachting World, Golden Globe skipper rescued by fellow competitor after 24 hours in liferaft
- Yachting Monthly, Tapio Lehtinen: lessons from my Golden Globe rescue
- Yachting Monthly, “Within two minutes the water had gone from knee to waist height, I knew I had to leave the boat”
The same hull in two races:
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.