Two Irish sailors are participating in the 2023-24 Ocean Globe Race (OGR), billed as a “retro race” in the spirit of the 1973 Whitbread Round the World Race.
Roisin O’Halloran (20) and Terry Kavanagh (55) will be on board the Swan 65 S&S Translated 9 and the Swan 57 Explorer, among a fleet of 14 yachts due to set sail from the Solent on September 10th.
Crews will not be using GPS, but will be relying on paper charts and astronavigation.
Irish sailor Roisin O'Halloran will compete in the Ocean Globe race
The fleet is divided into three classes -Adventure Class 46-55ft, Sayula Class 56-65ft and Flyer Class, comprising ex-Whitbread yachts from the first three editions.
The 27,000-mile course takes the three great Capes, Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, Australia’s Cape Leeuwin, and South America’s Cape Horn.
The Ocean Globe 2023-2023 race route
There are four stop-overs in Cape Town, South Africa; Auckland, New Zealand; and Punta del Este, Uruguay, before returning to Southhampton in April 2024.
O’Halloran, who learned to sail off the Irish west coast, was among over 1500 applicants for a crew spot on Translated 9, a Swan 65 yacht owned and co-skippered by Italian computer scientist Marco Trombetti.
She made a shortlist of 150 sailors who had to complete an arduous four-stage series of sea trials before final selection.
O’Halloran started racing at the age of 16, and has clocked up over 16,000 offshore miles in the past four years.
She currently lives in Falmouth, England, where she is studying sport and performance science at the University of Exeter, and teaches sailing in her free time.
Terry Kavanagh, a former deputy managing editor with Independent Newspapers, took up sailing with his wife Jacqueline after a Caribbean chartered holiday in 2016, and the couple recently completed an Atlantic crossing.
He spoke to Wavelengths and recalled how he saw an ad placed by Don McIntyre shortly before Christmas looking for crew.
You can hear his interview below
