Saint Helena Island to Recife
Posted by Graham Cox
Carnival in Brazil is a famous extravaganza, so it is not surprising perhaps that only two of the skippers scheduled to call on Week 6, Adam and Eric, managed to make contact with this scribe, despite being invited to place calls in the morning Recife time, instead of the early hours of the morning, as would have been the case while they were at sea. Plus, I went sailing on 09 February, the day they were due to call, which is why we are skipping from Week 6 to Week 7. Blame it on Carnival 2026!
In between partying, the skippers have been preparing their boats for the last push back to Antigua. A very hot-looking Jakub posted a video of his preparation on BIBI. “11 February, we are still in Recife, Brazil, it’s hot like hell, and walking outside is like being on a frying pan. I did some polyester resin repairs to reinforce my daggerboard housing. So now it’s the resin setting, and probably then I need to do this again and again.
“I’m in Cabanga Marina, a beautiful place with swimming pool, restaurants and stuff. The Recife Marina organized my boat to be lifted here. I was looking for a place where I could unfold my sails, service them and do some repairs. And all of a sudden, I end up in a football pitch, nicely covered, a little bit of gentle breeze coming through those gaps, but no sunshine and so happy to have such a big space.”
He pointed to a sail spread out on the floor. “This is my A3. I haven’t been using this much, so it still holds the color, but as I’m only learning how to fly the spinnaker properly, I did a little bit of damage to this, but that should be very easy to repair. I’m gonna do some stitching and put nice patch on it. After this, I will be going through my A5 and A7. They’re still in good condition, a little bit stretched, but they’re so thin that I can see the stars through them at night. But when I’m not pushing on the boat, I’m sailing the traditional way and I hope they will last till I come back home.”
Looking back at the passage from Saint Helena, Pilar said, “The last leg wasn’t easy. Despite the very rough seas, the weather was generally good. My goal was to regain 3rd place in the leg. BIBI had a great strategy and sailed really fast, which made it difficult to catch him. Once I managed to reach his position, we spent three days match racing (one against one).
“I couldn’t sleep much because of the pressure of overtaking him. I finally managed it and was able to head for Recife. I arrived completely exhausted. Luckily, I have three weeks to recover. I waited for BIBI to arrive so I could give Jakub a hug and congratulate him. Well done!”
When Adam was asked, after arriving in Recife, about the passage from St. Helena, he said, “I think it was one of the more difficult passages. It wasn’t because of high seas or strong winds. It is probably best described as partial monotony, because very little changed, plus the uncomfortable sea-state, which just remained up until the last three or four days. There was very little to do, therefore, in terms of sailing, and nothing to do in terms of navigation. The days dragged, the heat intensified, fresh food ran out, and I think I’d made the mistake of thinking, well, we’re sort of home now, just pop across to Brazil, then up to Antigua and we’re done.
“But these are still long passages, so I think I probably underestimated that, and therefore became frustrated, plus the fact that I was not able to get the boat to go very fast, and that was a bit like Chinese torture. When we get to the end of this race, looking back, whether we’ve come fifth or seventh will be really absolutely irrelevant. People will remember Renaud, but the rest of us will just be part of the team of adventurers. During the race, though, it’s important to know you are trying to keep the boat going fast.
“My two closest rivals, ARGO and BIBI, were flying, particularly BIBI. I tried moving weight, I tried swapping sails from left to right, I tried my A3, rather than the two smaller spinnakers, but I just had to admit defeat.”
The last time I spoke to Adam, he was having difficulty getting the boat to move fast under the South Atlantic self-steering gear, despite having had a good relationship with the gear before that. “I think the confused sea state played a part, and of course, because we were running dead downwind, we had very little apparent wind over the deck.
“I’ve got two tiller-pilots and I had them both refurbished in Cape Town. I had a long talk with a technician there and he was very helpful in terms of some of the adjustments that can be made, so I turned the gain down on both units, and I kept swapping them over so they didn’t overheat. I got a lot of success out of the tiller-pilots this time.
“However, I can’t drive the boat quite as hard under the tiller-pilots, and I was conscious that I was reducing sail when others weren’t. I know Christian runs with twin A5s, and that’s something that I don’t have in my locker. Also, having chatted to Jakub since he’s got in, he’s very positive about the benefits of his fins. He’s got much longer fins, almost 50% longer.”
Jakub broke the casing for one of his fins, though, on this passage, possibly due to the increased loads caused by their larger size. But for the final passage to Antigua, the MGR fleet probably won’t have any, or very much, downwind sailing, so that may change the equation yet again.
Speaking about sail configuration on the passage from Saint Helena, Adam said, “The majority of time I had the A5 to leeward and the A7 poled out to windward. I kept trying the A3 but I couldn’t really get that to work, it was just not filling properly. I kept dropping the A5 and A7 and putting the A3 up, but found that my boat speed was a little bit less. I tried the main, a full main on the leeward side and the A7 poled out on the windward side, but that didn’t seem to go as well as the foresails, so I had the main wrapped up in the sail cover for three quarters of the journey.”
To add to Adam’s frustration, the leading boats, even BIBI, who was just 70 NM ahead, seemed to carry fresher and steadier winds for much of the time. “All through this race, the people coming in later have had lighter winds. Whether that’s just a general trend of tradewind sailing I don’t know, but conditions certainly got lighter as this last passage went on.”
LITTLE WREN is in good condition and mostly ready for the final passage. “I just want to check my mainsail in a bit more detail, plus I’m going to take the boat out of the water, inspect and clean the hull. That’s my main job, other than just normal general maintenance, plus restocking food and water, etc.
His strategy for the next leg is simple – get out into the current, which runs strongly north, and stay with it, after wriggling through the doldrums, which will hopefully be narrow. Once they fleet gets into the NE trade winds, the rest of this ultimate passage should be a flyer.
Along with several MGR skippers, he has been staying ashore, as the heat and noise of downtown Recife made sleeping aboard LITTLE WREN difficult. “The first five days I got into my Airbnb I did nothing. I just slept and slept and slept, and ate a bit. I had to force myself to eat because I didn’t really feel like eating in the heat. I didn’t get too much rest in Saint Helena, and Cape Town was a bit noisy.
“The Recife Marina put on a lovely trip for us yesterday. We went on a tourist boat around the waterways, and a few of us normally meet up in the evenings. But it’s been pretty quiet, which is good. I think these long legs take it out of you a bit. The fatigue is accumulative and by this stage of the race I just feel a little bit spent and a tiny bit broken. We’ve had about 220 days at sea now in the last 13 months, and I think maybe it takes its toll a bit on the old bones.
“We’ve been to some amazing places, with some staggering memories to take away from them. But it is still all about rest, preparation, repairing, getting your head in the right space, getting everything ready, and then off you go. And if you don’t do those things methodically, which I think I’ve slipped up on in the last passage, then you really suffer for it. So it has been one long, mammoth effort to keep it going. And I think we’ll all fall in a complete heap when we get back home.
“It will be difficult for us all to say goodbye to each other because we’ve become quite close, as you know. But once that’s done, then I’d be keen to get back home. I left with one grandchild, and I’ll get back with three. So, I’ve got quite a lot to catch up on.”
It’s really impressive that the 2025 MGR has been so successful. Perhaps people will look back and think this inaugural event was kind of blessed, or had a state of grace or something (like the inaugural Singlehanded Transatlantic Race in 1960, the only OSTAR where no boats retired), but this should not detract from the tremendous achievement of the skippers.
John Guzzwell is rightly considered to be one of the greatest small-boat voyagers of all times, and the MGR skippers can now be seen as his contemporaries. There are many parallels, from the size of their mostly home-built yachts, to the fact that they learned the ropes as they went along. It has been fascinating to watch the MGR skippers grow into the role.
Reflecting on this, Adam said, “Six of us had dinner last night, and we were chatting amongst ourselves saying, we’re all feeling that this is quite normal now. It’s almost like a sort of job for us, we just keep going from place to place, and we know how to get the boats ready, how to help each other, and how to provision. But before we set off from Portugal, we were all absolutely scared as mice about the Atlantic crossing, never mind the Indian Ocean, or the Pacific.
“We’ve had 17 destinations, if you start from Lagos. Sometimes we had to come in with electric motors that didn’t work, or were ineffective, and a lot of the time we arrived in the dark, and in very difficult conditions. I think it’s a credit to all of us that there have been no real issues. I think this hasn’t been a big feature of the MGR because it’s all been about the race and who’s winning, or who’s not winning. But for me, I take quite a lot of pride in having kept my boat in one piece. And I can tell you, my heart was in my mouth many times.”
One of those times was when LITTLE WREN made landfall on Cocos-Keeling Atoll one dark night. Adam had come in from the SE and was trying to hug the northern end of the atoll close, so as not to be swept past the entrance to the lagoon and have to beat back against the strong trade winds.
“I was coming into the windward side of Direction Island on a broad reach from the SE on the starboard tack. I wanted to keep it relatively tight, as I didn’t want to go too far west to then have to come back. Then either the wind shifted, or I just got my timing wrong. It was 0200 and I was very tired. Anyway, I realized that I was going to have to gybe to get clear.
“The jib gybed over OK, but the main didn’t because I forgot that I had two preventers on. I tried to unclip the mainsail from the first preventer, but by this stage it was under too much load. Thankfully, I had the cockpit knife at hand and cut it, and then cut my second preventer. The sail then gybed, but by this stage, I could hear the rollers breaking on the reef and see white water to port. I would say I was 30 seconds from being on the reef, maybe less. It was pretty nervy. After that I got around the top of Direction Island and came in.”
He is working hard to promote the Ella Dawson Foundation, and LITTLE WREN’s voyage has so far raised 60% of its financial target. “We’re having a really big push to do more fundraising as this race comes to an end, and what’s lovely is that Jane, Kevin and Tasha Dawson are going to be at Antigua to welcome me back.”
Eric also found the passage from Saint Helena difficult and tiring. “The sea-state was pretty bad, and it was very hard to sleep. Because we were doing a lot of downwind running, and the seas were quite confused, there was a lot of rocking and rolling going on. But if you played the angles a bit more, it was easier.
“I had a good race with Keri. ORIGAMI and SUNBEAR were close by for a while, and I was in communication with him. He actually had quite a comfortable sail because he was sailing at better angles than most of us were doing. In the last 24 hours it went fairly light coming in to Recife, but I managed to arrive here just before dark. I think I did the passage in about 15 days and 15 hours (for 1800 miles).
“I had no main up for most of the trip, in fact I put the cover on it. I think I only put the main up maybe once or twice, and when I did, it had a triple reef in it. Most of the time I was running with the A7 and a headsail poled out, and when I could, I ran the A5 and the A7, or sometimes I ran the A5 and the headsail.
“I don’t use the electric tiller pilot as much as a lot of them do. I know it’s probably an advantage to do so in light airs, but my tiller pilot is pretty sad, it came with the boat, and croaks around.”
The back of the fleet in particular had significant periods of light winds. When running, that means very little apparent wind over the deck, and the faster you sail, the less there is!
“I was trying to get a reasonable angle (to increase the apparent wind) and so I’d go 50 miles on one gybe and then gybe the whole thing over and go the other way. I kept up reasonable boat speed, I think, by doing this. So yeah, it was quite good. I enjoyed the leg, but I’m certainly looking forward to the next one, getting to Antigua.”
Eric is also staying ashore, having found Recife to be too hot and noisy to sleep comfortably on the boat, and the commencement of Carnival will only make it noisier. “I’ve got an apartment in the same complex as Dan, Adam and Pilar. I had about three nights on SUNBEAR, and I struggled to sleep with the humidity and the heat. Once Carnival started, however, the accommodation prices skyrocketed. It went from around $50 a night, which is quite reasonable, to about $200 a night.”
Looking ahead to the final passage, he said, “It looks like we’re going to get a bit of rain going up the coast when we leave, and maybe a little bit of light weather. But it’s only early yet, so it’ll probably change. The doldrums belt is certainly looking light, but I don’t think it is going to be as bad as going through the Pacific doldrums.”
SUNBEAR, as always, is in pretty good shape. “I had issues with solar panel connectors on the last passage, so I’ve taken them off and hardwired it all with waterproof connectors, and they’re sealed, so that’s made a difference to my solar input. Everything else is in ship-shape condition, as long as our sails keep together over the last part of the journey. The mainsail is getting tired, and so is the A5, but I think they’ll be okay. I’ve got a spare new main on board. If I have to use it, well I have to use it, but I’m going to try not to.” (There is a time penalty for doing so.)
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter if I have to pay a penalty for breaking out my new mainsail. Most of the race positions are fairly well set now, I think, apart from probably Adam, Jacob, and Christian. There’s quite a buffer zone between myself and Jasmine and Ertan, and then the chance of me catching Jakub or Christian and Adam is the same. There are quite a few big buffer zones. It’s really just a matter of trying to hold your position for the overall result.”
“In hindsight, I wish I had put a whole new wardrobe of sails on for the MGR. I’d use the old ones to get to Antigua from Florida and then put the new set on. So, yeah, that’s something I think anyone who does the next race needs to look at. You need to have the best possible sails you can when you set off on a journey like that, because it’s a long way.
“I think we’re all putting covers on our sails now at the end, whereas we should have been doing that at the start. I think there’s a lesson there for the next group who do it. You really need to look after your sails. In those early stages we were just letting the sun belt on them. It was pretty hot through that first part of the race in the Pacific. You know, it’s a lot of UV hitting those sails. So, yeah, that’s something that’s definitely been learned.
“Early in the piece, I put a lot of chafe patches on the mainsail where it touched the spreaders and the shrouds. In fact, there’s one spot now that I’m going to put some sticky-back on, where it touches the spreader and a lower shroud. That’s really important. And also, have leather boots or protection on the spreaders, all that helps.
Asked about the condition of SUNBEAR’s underwater body, he said, “I hauled out in Cape Town and antifouled the boat, so it’s looking quite clean. I’ll get a diver to clean it before we leave here. The marina is trying to organise a diver for everybody if they wish.”
It is a good thing the bottom is clean, as he is not keen to jump overboard and scrub the hull at sea, like John Guzzwell did a few times on TREKKA. “No, I’m not going about to jump overboard out there. That’s a huge risk. If you do get a bite off a bloody shark or something, you’re in trouble. I had a reef shark off Guam when I did the Melbourne Osaka Race, a 2.5m reef shark. I was off the back of the boat with my tether, just having a wash. And this bloody reef shark pulled up behind me just as I was climbing up the ladder.”
When Eric bought SUNBEAR on the East Coast of the USA, and battled all the way out to Antigua, arriving with a bandaged elbow, just a day or two before the start of the race, many people were astonished when he said that he was going to start with everybody else. After all, at 72, he was the oldest entrant. Then he ran around in Falmouth Harbour before the start, which wasn’t the most auspicious beginning, but once away, he proved to be a tenacious competitor. And here he is, 13 months later.
Looking back on the experience, he said, “It’s been amazing. It’s ticked all the boxes that I thought it would. Meeting all the competitors, the people, they’ve just been a fantastic group of sailors, very special. We’ve made a lot of friends. I’m blown away by all the places that we’ve been to, and how we’ve inspired other sailors along the way. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.
“I’ve also learned a lot – you never stop learning. I’ve made a few mistakes along the way, I’m sure everyone has. I’ve made some big ones. Of course I came off the boat, that was scary, so yeah, I’ve learnt a lot, but it’s been an amazing adventure, and I’m really looking forward to crossing that finish line. I think it’ll be a pretty exciting day for everybody.”
Speaking about food, he said, “I like the Radix breakfasts. Excellent. I don’t think you can get much better than that. Very quick. They’re quite nourishing and full of protein. I’ve had Backcountry meals for my main meals since Fiji, and I think they’re excellent. I don’t get sick of them because there’s a good variety. Variety is very important in provisioning for long voyages. They are more expensive than most, but you get what you pay for. So, unlike a lot of the boats, where they take fresh foods and cook up a lot of things on their little cookers, I’ve just survived on freeze-dried foods.
“I try and take a bit of fresh fruit and things like that. I have some canned food as well. I often eat tuna or sardines and baked beans, that sort of thing, and dry biscuits, for lunch, and then I’ll have a freeze-dried main meal at night. For breakfast, I tend to alternate. I have canned fruit on cereal, and I alternate between that and the Radix freeze-dried breakfast.
“It’s amazing how much you eat out there, like nibbles and things like that, because you’re up to so many hours, you know, so you’re continually nibbling on things like muesli bars and sweet things, biscuits. Anyway, so it keeps me amused.”
Eric has been looking tired in recent videos. Asked about this, he said, “I’m definitely getting tired, no doubt about it. I think it’s an accumulation of fatigue from the whole race, and of course the heat and humidity start getting at you a bit. I was taking vitamin tablets regularly earlier, but I’ve run out of those. I still take magnesium tablets for my joints, but I think vitamin tablets are important, I think they help keep your stamina up as well, so that could be having an effect on me.”
He has not had any major skin problems, despite the lack of fresh water for washing, but noted, “Being old-skinned, it’s soft. I’ve got to be very careful that I don’t knock it and break it open. And now, because it’s so hot, I’m not in sailing overalls, so I’m more prone to knock my shins and take skin off.”
Eric and Brenda are flying to Europe for a holiday after they leave Antigua, before heading home to Coffs harbour, Australia. SUNBEAR will follow them, alongside IMMORTAL GAME, in a container. “Brenda is coming over on 6 March, so she’ll be here when the lead boats arrive, I would imagine. We fly out on the 23rd to Miami, and then we head to France. We’re hiring a car and heading towards Portugal for a couple of weeks. We should be back in Australia early April.
Jasmine has arrived in Recife, Brazil, 38 days after leaving Cape Town, South Africa, including a 7 day pitstop on the wonderful island of St Helena, plus a long swim around it!
That’s the Atlantic Ocean crossed solo three times now. The North Atlantic twice (rowing and sailing) and now the Southern Atlantic. Since St Helena the passage was steady, an absence of trade winds over the last 10 days saw the average mileage drop. However it was a great passage, really chilled (actually really hot), and a great recovery time after the marathon swim.
At dusk last night a bulk carrier, the Berge Galdhopiggen, 179m long, got a little too close and didn’t answer Jasmine’s radio calls, but all was well. She crossed the finish line at 03:55 UTC (00:55 local time) Entering port and the channel along to the Novotel Marina was all fine, Jasmine was able to sail most of it whilst being pushed by a very strong tide. Jakub helped Jasmine berth and provided a welcoming cup of tea. After a stretch of the legs along the pontoon Jasmine got her head down to sleep about 4 am local time and after about 3 hours was woken by a rain storm. As she’d left the hatch open everything was drenched. She got up to put everything away and sort out the boat, managed to trip over one of the lines of Mini Globe Race flags which ended up in a soggy mess on deck.
She then went to have an ‘insane’ all you can eat breakfast at the adjacent hotel. Two servings later, full on bacon, pulled beef, eggs and cheesy Bon-bons she headed for a shower, then to meet the Recife Rotary and sort out the customs and immigration paperwork.
On 07 February, Don McIntyre reported, “Jasmine has just been awarded the OCC JESTER AWARD, recognizing her efforts as a singlehanded sailor in a boat under 30ft. BRAVO JAZZ… well deserved and a tonne of courage! Also, our mate in DURBAN, Vince Nell, who managed a huge amount of logistics for the fleet and us as organisers, was awarded the OCC PORTS & RALLIES award, so THANKS!!
Don is fond of saying that planning, preparation and execution are key elements in any successful voyage – and he is right. But there is also an element of luck involved, the unknown Factor X, that turns endeavour into adventure. The 2025 MGR has been a model example of planning, preparation and execution, from its administration, informed by the vast experience of Don McIntyre, to the enthusiasm and resilience of the skippers, while luck has carried the day more than once.
Hopefully, both elements will continue to grace the fleet until the last boat crosses the finish line off Antigua in March. On 19 February, the final passage of the 2025 MGR starts at 1200 local time, in Recife Harbour. It has been one hell of a ride so far.
