A report commissioned by the organisers of the Golden Globe Race 2022/23 has found the event generated some €213 million in media value.

The Meltwater 2022 GGR media analysis identified that the event’s official website had 4.4 million unique visits with 19 million unique pages opened.

On social media, the GGR’s Facebook reach was 3.3 million and YouTube had 3.2 million views. Twitter saw 5.2 million impressions and Instagram had a reach of one million.

Some 65,000 people downloaded the Yellowbrick tracking app which related to over 15 million hits if checked just once a day, though most checked many times each day, the analysis found.

And a total of 240,000 people visited the Les Sables d’Olonne GGR village in the two weeks before the start of the race, in which 21 sailors from 14 countries sailed around the world in small full-keel yachts.

Only three sailors would finish the race eight months later, with winner Kirsten Neuschäfer from South Africa making history as the first woman to win a solo round-the-world race and being recognised for her efforts with a World Sailor of the Year gong.

Founder of the Golden Globe, Don McIntyre said he was not surprised by the Meltwater report’s findings.

GGR 2026 entrant Olivia O Wyatt believes her boat Juniper, a 34ft cutter rigged sloop, is haunted

“We all felt that the 2022 GGR was bigger and better than 2018 with a real positive vibe,” he said. “The strong Les Sables d’Olonne support had a big impact and it was like the GGR had all of a sudden grown up. We saw a huge number of non-sailing followers captivated by the daily coverage and everyone realised it was not just a boat race!

“Getting to the start was hard and Covid did not help, but getting to the finish was everything and the stories reflected that. Hearts and minds were broken, but heroes were also made! The 2026 GGR is going to be epic!”

Already 21 sailors from 14 countries have signed up for the fourth edition of the GGR in 2026, including Kerry solo sailor Pat Lawless — who has unfinished business after his withdrawal from the last race due to self-steering failure.

So far the only female entrant, aiming to replicate Neuschäfer’s success, is American film-maker and TV producer Olivia O Wyatt who will race with Juniper, a 34ft cutter rigged sloop she believes is haunted.

Kirsten Neuschäfer has made history as the first woman — and first South African — to win a solo round-the-world sailing race with her victory in the 2022-23 Golden Globe Race on Thursday (27 April).

She also took line honours when she arrived on her 36-foot Cape George cutter Minnehaha in Les Sables-d’Olonne in western France to a hero’s welcome, as Scuttlebutt Sailing News reports.

It marks the end of an eventful nearly eight months at sea, non-stop across 30,000 nautical miles for the 40-year-old from Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), which saw her as the first in the GGR fleet to round Cape Horn — as well as divert from her race to rescue fellow competitor Tapio Lehtinen when his boat sank south of Cape Town in November.

In the final days, Neuschäfer was put under pressure by the challenge of second-placed Abhilash Tomy, the GGR veteran making his big comeback after severely injuring his back when his yacht rolled and dismasted in the Southern Indian Ocean in the 2018 edition of the race.

But Neuschäfer pulled away on the home stretch, with a 135-mile lead on the experienced Indian sailor when she crossed the line on Thursday night.

Out of the 16 sailors who set out from Les Sables last September, only three — Neuschäfer, Tomy and Austria’s Michael Guggenberger, who is still some 1,800 miles from the finish — remained in contention.

Two others, Simon Curwen from the UK and South Africa’s Jeremy Bagshaw, dropped down to the Chichester class after their stops disqualified them from the main race, with the former taking that title on arrival just ahead of Neuschäfer.

Scuttlebutt Sailing News has much more on the story HERE.