Organaisers of the 2018 and 2022 Golden Globe Race have announced a new retro race – The Ocean Globe Race (OGR).

Designed to mark the 50th anniversary of the inaugural 1973 Whitbread Round the World Race, the event will be run along similar lines as the Golden Globe Race with no modern equipment.

The eight-month race will follow the route of the original 1973 race. Only approved fibreglass production yachts designed before 1988, and between 47ft-66ft, will be allowed to take part and there will be no computers, no satellites, no GPS, and no high-tech materials.

Speaking to Yachting Monthly, Don McIntyre said The Ocean Globe Race, like the original Whitbread, is designed for ordinary sailors before yachts became faster and the costs became prohibitive.

Traditional navigation equipment will be used by the skippers. Credit: Barry Pickthall/PPL/GGR

Like the 1968-69 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, the 1973 Whitbread was also won by the least expected to win. Mexican Ramón Carlin skippered his Swan 65 Sayula II to first place, helped by a crew of family and friends.

The Ocean Globe Race is expected to start in Europe on 10 September 2023 and will have four legs taking in the Southern Ocean and the three great capes.

Stopovers will include South Africa, Australia or New Zealand and South America, before finishing back in Europe in April 2024. The stopover ports and route will be announced in September 2020.

To win the OGR challenge is to be the IRC handicap overall winner or First in Class. The event will be sailed under International Collision Regulations.

Entries are limited to 30 boats. Only approved ocean voyaging yachts between 47ft and 68ft, will be allowed to take part in the three classes. Nautor Swan production yachts that fall within the age/length parameters are currently approved. The Adventure Class will be opened for yachts between 47ft-56ft, the Sayula Class is for 56ft-66ft yachts and the third, Flyer Class will be open to original entries from the first three Whitbread Races (1973-4, 1977-78, 1981-82), together with Cass surveyed production sail training yachts.

The Adventure class will have a minimum of seven crew while the Sayula Class will have a minimum of eight crew. The skipper or one designated Ocean Yachtmaster must sail the entire race.

On each leg, the crew must consist of at least one Ocean Yachtmaster, one Yachtmaster, one woman and one crew under the age of 24. Only 30% of the crew can be classified World Sailing Group 3 Professionals. All other crew must be equivalent to World Sailing Group 1 Amateur status.

Don McIntyre is behind the Ocean Globe Race. Credit: Christophe Favreau/PPL/GGR

All crew must have a minimum of 1,500 ocean miles or 1,000 recent miles on the entered yacht. One crew member with 25,000 logged sea miles must be onboard at all times. At least 70% of the crew on the start leg must also complete a pre-approved 1,500 mile non stop ocean voyage on the entered yacht after March 2023.

Each leg of the race must be completed without the use of modern technology.

Approved items include: desalinators, refrigeration, non-interfaced basic electronic sailing instruments, stand-alone paper print weather fax, basic non-GPS radar, marine HF SSB radio, non-GPS Digital cameras, electric clocks and headsail furling.

For emergencies, the crew will be allowed to carry a GPS chart plotter/AIS Man Over Board plotting and locating system with sealed screen for emergency use only by authorized crew, AIS transponder and alarm, radar transponder and alarm, two SOLAS life rafts (150% crew capacity), standard operating procedures document for MOB, fire, dismasting, steering loss, grounding, serious injury, jury rig and other emergencies. The crew will all have to complete jury rig, MOB and emergency steering trials.

Crews will be banned from using GPS, electric autopilots, sat phones for private use, HAM radio transmissions, carbon fibre or other high tech materials used in sails, rigging, spars etc, spinnaker socks, Code 0 furling, iPhones, iPads and computers (although they can be all sealed onboard for crew use in ports only) and digital music (cassette tapes only).

A pre-notice of race will be published on 1 January 2020, with a final notice of race published on 10 September 2020.