Global Solo Challenge: Philipp Hympendahl signs up for the one-handed race around the world

Hympendahl is the only German sailor so far to have competed for the Global Solo Challenge (GSC) has registered for the race. The race is a non-stop single-handed regatta around the world, travelling east past the three great capes: Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin and Cape Horn.

The start will be staggered from September next year in A Coruña in northern Spain. The race will also finish there. The GSC sits between the already established Golden Globe Race, which is sailed on old long-keelers, and the Vendée Globe, the high-tech offshore race of the world's best sailing professionals, which has also become well known in non-sailing circles in Germany thanks in particular to Boris Herrmann.

The GSC takes place in various boat classes from 32 to 55 feet in length; participation is also possible with a smaller budget. Faster boats start the race up to eleven weeks later so that a fair competition is possible and the first boat in A Coruña also wins the regatta in the end.

The environmentally friendly idea behind the GSC is that older boats should be made fit to sail around the world rather than building new ones. The biggest challenges for the skippers will be the loneliness, cold and storms in the Southern Ocean.

Philipp Hympendahl has so far demonstrated his physical and mental endurance and capacity for suffering on land: as a long-distance cyclist. In 2019, he set off with extreme athlete Jonas Deichmann on the "Cape to Cape", a world record bike ride from the Northern Cape to Cape Town.

As a sailor, he has faced ever greater challenges in recent years. As a participant in the Lapita expedition together with his father Klaus Hympendahl, he survived a storm with 50 knots of wind on a Wharram catamaran in the Pacific back in 2008.

In winter 2021, he sailed solo around Denmark and has just returned from a long circumnavigation of the North Sea. The report will be published in an upcoming issue of YACHT. Hympendahl also documents his journeys on his own YouTube channel.

In order to realise his new, ambitious goal, he has a small team of volunteers behind him, says Hympendahl, but he also needs help from sponsors and supporters. As time is pressing, the first thing to do now is to buy and convert a boat suitable for sailing around the world.

Team GSC-Germany:

Sven Messner - Project Manager, Heinz-Dieter Heibach - PR Manager, Lutz Müller - Technical Advisor, Zoe Hympendahl - Social Media. Contact: philipp@hympendahl.de