Third Finisher in Golden Globe
Uku Randmaa crossed the finish line in Les Sables-d’Olonne at 9 a.m. UTC yesterday in the Golden Globe Race. Thousands of spectators lined the river entrance to welcome the 56-year-old Estonian solo circumnavigator and his boat.
Waiting for him at the dock were his wife Maibi and young twins Thor and Orm, who were born shortly before his departure. Race winner Jean-Luc Van Den Heede was one of the first to shake his hand, followed by second-place Dutchman Mark Slats, and two who were rescued in mid-ocean, Loïc Lepage and Susie Goodall.
After almost 252 days at sea, all he had left to eat was three packets of powdered soup, and he grabbed the pizza offered to him with both hands. Thanking God, Uku poured some champagne in the water, then sprinkled some on his boat, the Rustler 36 One and All. He saved the biggest portion for his Hydrovane self-steering — before passing the bubbly around to his fellow GGR skippers.
“I think I must have lost at least 20 kg,” he said. (That’s 44 pounds.) “By Hobart, I knew I was going to run short of food so I divided up what I had left by two — and then I divided it by two more. I had two meals a day; a freeze-dried dish and a cup of soup, but it has been very good for my health. If I did physical work, I got tired early, but it was not a major problem.” He had tried to catch fish to supplement his diet, but went a week or more with no success.
The hardest part of the voyage was lack of wind. “I was stuck in the St. Helena high-pressure system for more than a week. My biggest worry was keeping the boat in one piece. I was worried that if something broke I might not be able to finish the race.”
Randmaa commented on the amount of trash in the oceans. “The biggest pollution — mainly plastic — was after rounding the Cape of Good Hope. There were streams of it in the ocean. I came across a door and, on another occasion, a complete tree. If I had hit that, I think my steering would have broken.”
He enjoyed the Southern Ocean the most. “The waves, the loneliness. The waves were amazing. I watched them for hours, and every one was different.”
Barnacles were a continuous problem. “At Hobart, someone said ‘I have good and bad news for you, Uku. The good news is that you could cut 10 days off your voyage time. The bad news is that you have to clean the bottom yourself!’ It was quite scary to see your boat from outside. The waters were ’round 6°C. I wore my survival suit, but it was very buoyant, so I had to put lines under the keel and pull myself down to scrape the hull.”
The Estonian was in third place by the Hobart film stop and maintained this position to the finish, despite a 72-hour penalty he received on January 20 for private routing information gained from a Ham radio operator. “This was my biggest dream in life,” he added, “and I am very, very happy to have realized it. And for that, I have to thank my wife.”
Fourth-place Hungarian-American sailor Istvan Kopar should reach Les Sables on March 18 or 19.