Damien Guillou ends the week 870 nautical miles clear in the Golden Globe Race 2026, a lead that stood at 754 miles seven days ago. He also became the first skipper past the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope, and three storms in ten days put the rest of the fleet through the wringer. The figures come from the tracker snapshots in our daily reports, the latest at 00:00 UTC on 8 November, Day 63.
Guillou pulls clear of Beskardes
Solarem led by 754 miles on Day 55 (31 October), Guillou’s 160 mile run the best in the fleet. The gap sat at 767 for the next two days, then dipped to 743 on 3 November, the day he cleared the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope. He was near 43°27.6 S at the time, some 92 miles north of the 45 degrees south line entrants may not cross.
Ertan Beskardes has held second in Miss Beagle throughout. He trimmed the gap in light air, then lost ground to the weather: 780 miles on Day 59, 755 on Day 60 and 870 by Day 63, when Solarem made 145 miles in 24 hours and Miss Beagle just 50. Andrea Lodolo was third early in the week. That place now belongs to Etienne Messikommer in Bernard, 447 miles behind Beskardes.
Three storms in ten days
Sixty days and 8,000 miles in, the fleet has taken three storms in ten days, with forecast gusts above 70 knots in places. Daniel Pinsky hand-steered Exodus under bare poles, then climbed the mast to recover a lost halyard, and was frank that he had been afraid, veteran of similar weather or not. Henry Wootton’s Privateer was caught by breaking seas, one of which flooded the companionway. Isa Rosli spent hours in cold water scraping barnacles off Olleanna.
The latest blow reached the front of the fleet from about 08:00 UTC on 6 November, with gusts of 35 to 40 knots and six to seven metre seas forecast. Beskardes had already endured a night of gusts near 50 knots, and a splash into his cockpit soaked his notebook and two books on ocean currents. Gunnar Christensen’s Pompoen took waves aboard in a south-westerly gale, and Messikommer met the biggest sea of his voyage, which he called beautiful and scary in the same breath. The race office issues the warnings. What to do about them is each skipper’s call.
Fourth place and the chase
Fourth place was the tightest fight of the week. Henry Wootton led Mara Kveseth’s Showgirl by a single mile on Day 60, after the fleet’s best runs on Day 59 (156 miles) and Day 60 (157). By Day 63 he was 16 miles clear, but Pinsky is closing on both: Exodus made 144 miles in the latest 24 hours against 132 for Kveseth and 127 for Wootton.
Pär Nyman’s Lazy Otter logged the best run in our reports this week, 165 miles on Day 63, after 144 on Day 57. The back of the fleet found less wind. Matt Woodside made 17 miles on Day 57, Christensen 41 on Day 59, and Rosli and Woodside 67 each on Day 60 under the South Atlantic high. Tipi Haere has not updated on the public tracker since 14:45 UTC on 7 November. The race office says Woodside’s backup unit reports every 12 hours and no distress alert has been raised.
Pumpkins, pickles and an albatross
Kveseth carved a Halloween pumpkin and held it up to her camera. Christensen apologised to the wind for his language after a night of headwinds, and later owned up to too many pickles and a pigeon mug for his morning coffee. Messikommer, crawling along at 1.5 knots, simply asked for some wind.
Beskardes supplied the odd details. A passing ship’s VHF position put his sextant noon sight within about a mile, though he also found he had been dialling the wrong HF frequency, 6515 kHz instead of 6516. When the storm blew out he counted eight or nine birds circling Miss Beagle, watched an albatross slide past close enough to admire, and rewarded himself with orange soda, a stroopwafel and olives. Guido Cantini reports that in his part of the world the lows are sunny and the highs cloudy and wet.
Who is still racing
Twelve of the 16 starters were still in the main race on 5 November. Pat Lawless was forced out on 17 October by a rig failure while lying second, Louis Kerdelhué retired in Recife and Yalcin at Cadiz. Guy deBoer has withdrawn from the race in Spirit. Our separate report covers the arrangements off Brazil, where a Brazilian Navy corvette was expected on 8 November.
The race office has now confirmed that Andrea Lodolo’s campaign in BiBi is over and that he is heading for Cape Town, about 1,000 miles away, although the tracker still lists him as racing. By our count that leaves 11 boats, with roughly 18,400 to 20,500 miles still to sail through the Indian Ocean, the Great Australian Bight and the Pacific, and round Cape Horn.
What to watch in the week ahead
Our reading of the PredictWind forecast for the ocean south of Africa has north-westerly to westerly winds building through Monday 9 November, 20 to 30 knots south of 38 degrees south and lighter near the coast. The two models we compare split on Tuesday’s strength, then show broad westerlies of 25 to 30 knots by Wednesday and Thursday. Entrants are not allowed weather routing, so every sail and reefing call stays with the skipper on deck.
Three questions for the week. Can Beskardes find wind and hold second? Can Pinsky overhaul Kveseth and Wootton? And were the long runs from Nyman and others a blip or the new pace?
Follow the whole race on our dedicated Golden Globe Race 2026 page.
