The concept of the Golden Globe Challenge, the four-yearly non-stop round the world race for boats not more than 36ft LOA designed pre-1988 with a traditional closed hull shape, may indeed have developed in order to celebrate Robin Knox-Johnston’s pioneering circuit with the 32ft timber ketch Suhaili in 1968-69, and to some additional extent the near-contemporary wide-ranging voyaging of Bernard Moitessier with the 39ft steel ketch Joshua.
Yet no matter how much we may try to re-enact history by attempting to bring everything to a halt for a few contemplative days, the reality is that our impulse is to move on. There have of course been strands of formerly-evolving humanity which have doggedly stayed put in the development stakes. But all we know of them now is learned through archaeology. By contrast, those of us who accept the great and eternally moving roadshow of life can find contemporary relevance in almost everything. For us, the past is not even a different country. The past is not even past.
Damien Guillou’s Rustler 36 Solarem is currently the pace boat in the Golden Globe 2026
CELEBRATION OF PROVEN SEABOATS IN CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGE
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that while the Golden Globe is a celebration of the best of seagoing yachts as they were 38 years ago, the fact is it has become a sporting challenge in its own right, an historic race that we follow firstly as a demanding race in the here and now, then secondly – sometimes a very long way down the line – we acknowledge its pure gold historical meaning.
Pre-race partying? Robin Knox-Johnston and Pat Lawlesss seem to be joined in song in Les Sables d’Olonne.
Thus from the moment the fleet left the quintessentially French Biscay port of Les Sables d’Olonne last Sunday (September 6th), bound for the impossibly different world of the Great Southern Sea, it was a case of Race On – this was sport first, seamanship second, and maritime history third.
TWO BOATS EMERGE AHEAD
In gentle conditions working their way out of the Bay of Biscay, two boats had emerged ahead by the time they were rounding the major corner of Finisterre in northwest Spain. France’s Damien Guillou led with his Rustler 36 Solarem, having successfully gambled on finding better strength in the generally west to northwest wind by holding to the south of the Bay of Biscay.
Support from home – Robin Knox Johnson (left) on the quayside with Gerry O’Neill of the Cruising Group. Photo: Wally McGuirk
“Wish me luck!” Pat heads for sea
Having got the wind he sought, the key to success was then found in managing to lay along the north coast of Spain without having to tack, and he succeeded in this to be first at Finisterre. Ireland’s Pat Lawless – having sailed a more conservative middle track – emerged out of the fleet in clear second, apparently achieved as much as anything by simply sailing better than those near him, while accurately reading the flukey wind predictions for the course he chose.
Countdown to start as the mainsail is raised. Photo: Wally McGuirk
“PORTUGUESE TRADES”
Since then, the two leaders have got themselves firmly into the Portuguese Trades, those beefy northerlies which seem to blow for ever when you’re trying to get a boat north from the Algarve to Vigo up the West Coast of Iberia. And while - as you’d expect – the Rustler has proven marginally faster in running conditions that really test the solo sailor if they’re seriously racing, Pat Lawless’s SilverminesHydro has – from time to time – been showing the better speed.
Either way, for the moment they’ve left the rest of the fleet for dead. And though in an ultra-long race like this the setbacks can come thick and fast to upset a seemingly firmly established running order, it’s Guillou and Lawless getting all the attention at the time when the race is receiving maximum focus.
Living history – Bernard Moitessier’s Joshua moving through the fleet.
DAMIEN GILLOU
They make for a fascinating comparison. Damien Gillou (43) is right at the heart of the competitive French sailing scene. For eight years, he was part of the French Olympic squad in the 49ers, he did a Tour de France a la Voile with Barnard Stamm, and then raced with the Solitaire du Figaro setup, achieving several rankings in the top ten.
Lifelong competitive sailor – Damien Guillou (43) currently leads the Golde Globe 2026
He then turned to the Golden Globe in 2022, and was in the top five when he had to retire at Cape Town with mechanical failure. Between times he has been on the Preparation and Support Team for several top rank French sailors, and we thus find his current Rustler 36 has had significant work done for this challenge, with hull reinforcement in several key area.
PAT LAWLESS
Pat Lawless is 70. That’s news in itself. And when you consider his extensive and often very rugged seafaring career, it would be reasonable to expect to meet a weather-beaten veteran of many tough days at sea. Damn the bit. He seems to still have all his hair – albeit tending towards white – and while “schoolgirl complexion” is pushing it a bit, this isn’t some leathery relic battered by crashing spray and flying spume. On the contrary, it wouldn’t surprise us at all to hear that if he steps onto a bus, they’ll demand to see his travel pass.
They might ask to see his Travel Pass – Pat Lawless (70) belies his age.
His father – also Pat - was a round the world sailor between intervals of running the family business - a furniture factory in Limerick – but now when Pat is at home, it’s with his wife Rita in Ballyferriter, that bit of Kerry that’s west of Dingle, his working life having been with fishing the Atlantic for three decades, and making furniture the rest of the time.
2022 RETIRAL INTO CAPETOWN
He also was in the 2022 race, and terminal failure of the self steering likewise saw retiral into Capetown. But longterm withdrawal from the challenge simply wasn’t on the table, and he turned up on time in Les Sables d’Olonne this year with a considerably larger support team than any other competitor.
Yet where other contenders had support teams with key professionals, every last man and woman in “The Friends of Pat Lawless” – the largest Support Team of all – was there entirely at his or her own expense, which tells us much about how the “ordinary” sailing community of Ireland is identifying with Pat and what he is doing.
THE BOATS
Pat Lawless is racing an Alan Pape-designed Saga 36 cutter, while Damien Guillou is racing the design favoured for this race, a Holman & Pye-designed Rustler 36. And because connections are drawn to the 19th Century Colin Archer-designed sailing rescue ketches for the Norwegian fishing fleet, the Lawless boat might be thought of as slow and heavy.
The Saga 36 is all boat, but has moved on a long way from the concet of the classic Colin Archer rescue ketch.
But we should remember that in 1905, Colin Archer designed the cruising ketch Asgard for Erskine & Molly Childers, and Asgard was no slouch, while detailed examination of the Saltram hull shape shows very cutaway lines – there may be Colin Archer ancestry, but it’s now at some distance.
While the Rustler 36 may look to be more speed-oriented, her displacement is only 1,200 lbs less than the Saga 36.
Then too, while the Saga 36 displaces an admittedly hefty 18,000 lbs, the Rustler 36 isn’t so far behind at 16,805 lbs, and with the hull reinforcing that Damien Guillou has undertaken, the difference in all-up weight is further reduced.
The challenge of the Golden Globe is to have a performance cruiser-racer that can come competitively through every condition, from maddeningly prolonged calm to near-hurricane wind-strengths. That’s what the boats need to be able to do. As for the sailors, they need to be super-men and women, and yet identifiably human as well. It’s quite a call.
Meet Pat Lawless here:
