The 2018 Golden Globe Race is a sailing race around the world which started on 1 July 2018 from Les Sables-d’Olonne, France. The race started fifty years after the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race and features yachts similar to those used at that time, with no modern technology allowed.
At this moment the sailors are getting prepaired to finish off with the Indian Ocean.
Istvan Kopar
Istvan, a Hungarian-born American, is a professional sailor and U.S. Coast Guard-licensed captain who has logged more than 60,000 nautical miles sailing solo. His proudest accomplishment to date was his solo one-stop circumnavigation in 1990-1991 without the aid of GPS. He relied on a sextant, manual chart plotting, and weather forecasts broadcast in Morse code. Sailing a 31-foot boat that he had built himself, Istvan completed the voyage in record time for the size of his yacht. Istvan also skippered the winning yacht in the 1996/97 Hong Kong Challenge around the world yacht race. He was among the top finishers in the 1992 America 500-Columbus Transatlantic Race, and won the Kapry’s Trophy in the 1995 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC).
Istvan Kopar purchased the 1986-built Tradewind 35 class yacht Puffin in 2015 to compete in the GGR. Istvan and his team have since stripped the inside and outside of the boat and added more layers of fiberglass to improve her durability. Other modifications included decreasing the size of the cockpit and improving its drainage, adding a watertight bulkhead inside the bow, and installing an additional freshwater tank.