Competitors must sail in production boats between 32ft
and 36ft overall (9.75 – 10.97m) designed prior to 1988 that have a full-length
keel with rudder attached to their trailing edge.
It was suggested that she look at the Cape George 36, which
originates on the US west coast. Designed and built by Cape George Cutters out
of Port Townsend, Washington, on paper the boat appeared to check all the
boxes.
“It looked like it would be a heavy and sturdy sea-worthy but
also fast boat,” she said. “I spoke to a lot of boat designers, racing sailors
etc. and by looking at the numbers on paper, the consensus was it would be an
ideal boat for my purposes.”
Apparently, Cape George 36 boats rarely hit the market however at the time three were available: one in Seattle, one in Newfoundland and another in Italy. Ultimately the boat in Newfoundland – Minnehaha - seemed the best option and from the moment she saw it, Neuschafer felt it would be a good choice.
“I instantly liked the boat even though from the start I
could see it was going to be a lot of work,” she recalled. “And Cape George
Cutters confirmed that she had been professionally built in their yard which
helped as they knew the boat.”
Neuschafer learned about the pitfalls she could potentially
expect for a vessel of its nature and age (she was originally launched in 1988).
Minnehaha is somewhat of a hybrid, with a fiberglass hull, a requirement
of the race, with a wooden deck.
“The yard had done a lot of refits of old Cape Georges and most
often what needed repairing were the bulwarks because they’re built of wood and
bolted onto the hull above, they would often rot in the colder northern
climates where they’d experience the freeze thaw cycles, plus the teak decks
are an ongoing maintenance challenge,” Neuschafer noted.
By the end of 2019, Neuschafer was back home in South Africa
raising funds to purchase Minnehaha. With that done, she returned to
Maine to start the 2020 season working as a skipper for Skip Novak’s Pelagic Expeditions,
but Covid soon hit shortly after her arrival, and borders quickly closed
putting both a halt on her Pelagic job and her ability to get to Newfoundland
to start work on her own boat. She waited it out in Maine for months until a friend
identified a legal loophole which would enable her to get to Minnehaha
in Canada. By then it was November 2020 and quickly turning into winter in
Newfoundland.
Her original plan had been to sail Minnehaha to Maine
to work on a refit. However, following a sea trial it was clear that the boat
wasn’t in any condition to sail into the North Atlantic, let alone in winter. Neuschafer
also had to be mindful of where she ventured given that international borders
were closed, and she didn’t want to run the risk of not being able to get into
any country.
Meanwhile, friends had come through with connections to help
her haul the boat on Prince Edward Island (PEI), but she still needed to sail
the short distance from Newfoundland before the seas froze over. It took weeks to leave, as one winter depression after the next passed the Cabot Strait.
Local fishermen were looking out for her, and she relied on their wisdom before
deciding to leave.
After some six weeks a short weather window enabled her to cross
the Cabot Strait to PEI, making it in the nick of time as ice was already forming
on the water. Minnehaha was hauled, which was an event unto itself. While
a crane was available, there was not a truck or trailer on the island designed to
transport a keel boat.
“Being as innovative as they are on PEI, the job got done with
a lobster boat trailer,” Neuschafer recalled. “One young guy, Eddie Arsenault, who
was considered a genius on PEI, told me, 'Relax, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t
think it was doable,' and he pulled it off.”
With the boat in a shed and safe for the winter, the refit of Minnehaha got underway. The PEI community picked up interest in the project and Arsenault quickly became her right-hand man, basically dropping his regular work to work with Neuschafer full-time on the massive 10-month project, which included rebuilding of the upper layers of the decks, the bulwarks and bowsprit.
Keeping in mind that all this was being done during an international pandemic, on a remote island, in the middle of a severe winter, sourcing materials was not exactly easy. But Arsenault proved to be incredibly resourceful.
“He persuaded an old guy who owned a lathe bench which wasn’t being used any longer but was built
of Douglas Fir to sell us the bench so we could build bulwarks out of it,” she said. “He’d recall where to find things he’d seen somewhere ten years previously which he knew we could use. What we couldn’t source he would machine himself.”With this incredibly bright talent - a person who could do
the same amount of work as four people in one day – Minnehaha was refit.
By the time summer rolled around, Prince Edward Islanders had really
adopted
her as their own. She had moved into new friends’ spare room right next to the
shed where her boat was being worked on.
“The community support was otherworldly,” Neuschafer said
with heartfelt gratitude. “I just don’t think it’s possible to find that kind
of support somewhere else other than an obscure little place like PEI.”
The community held fundraisers for her just to keep the
project ticking over and while Neuschafer knew there would be big expenses like
replacing the rig – the original rig was wooden spars - she had no idea the
extent of the rest of the work and what it would cost.
“If it had not been for Eddie, the project would not have
been possible,” she said. “He charged me half of what he would charge typically
for his labor, and he put hundreds of hours in that he didn’t charge me a cent
for. Where we could we repurposed material that he sourced which was much less
expensive than it would have been otherwise, which was cool because the problem
with old fiberglass boats is that they’re not recyclable and typically they
become landfill once they’ve been discarded – I now have a repurposed round-the-world-boat.
It’s nice to give the boat a second life because it’s a beautiful classic boat
that may not have ever been recovered.”
After
three weeks she realized winter wasn’t getting better, it was getting colder
and ice conditions were near. She had already spent three weeks on the east
side of PEI waiting for a weather window when a gap appeared, which was not
ideal – it meant leaving in 40-50 knots.
She left PEI on a staysail and trysail in storm
conditions through the Canso Canal, Nova Scotia, before entering the Atlantic
Ocean. She spent one night in Fisherman’s Harbor, an obscure little fishing
harbor close to Canso where the fishermen had all hauled their boats for the
season. When she came into port, they let her know that she should call them if
she needed help. She called the next day, requesting assistance to cast off so
that she could leave to head into the Atlantic.
“They didn’t want me to leave, they said it was blowing 40 knots inside and that it would be blowing 50+ outside, 'Are you sure you want to leave?' they questioned me. I said I had to leave because if I didn’t, I’d never get out there. I did leave and sailed non-stop to South Africa, making landfall in Cape Town.”
from Nova Scotia to Cape Town. After three months at home in Cape Town, she sailed another 6,300 to the Azores where she stopped to haul the boat one final time to anti-foul. From the Azores it was another 1000 miles to the Bay of Biscay to prepare for the start of the Golden Globe.
She feels like she’s encountered most of the conditions she
could encounter on the race except the big heavy Southern Ocean conditions,
which she had only had a little taste of approaching Cape Town.
“The Southern Ocean makes me a little nervous, but I do
really trust the boat. If we don’t do well, it’s me!” she laughed.
In hindsight, she couldn’t have chosen and refitted her boat
in a better way. She knows Minnehaha so intimately at this point and has
developed a special relationship with the boat.
“I love the boat; I’ve put so much of my personal energy
into it,” she said. “There’s hardly a nut, bolt or screw that hasn’t passed
through my hands. I had lots of tools and materials left from the refit which
were fantastic – correct sized - spares to take on board.”
While she never really considered changing the name of her
boat, she deferred to the advice of the local northern fisherman.
“They said to me, 'Don’t change the name; you change the
name, you change the luck,'" she noted. “I like the name and the fact that she
is a North American boat with a North American name. They were so kind to me, all
those Canadians in those far northern and somewhat isolated islands are such
nice, kind, generous people.”
“Getting offshore, away from traffic and into the trade winds when it gets warm and the weather is nice and consistent, and leaving all this behind – it’s hectic here at the docks in the South of France, the start line will be intense, so to finally start, break away from all of this and find yourself in your world and living to your own rhythm again. That’s going to be really rewarding.” - Follow Kirsten Neuschafer: https://kirstenggr.com/
*The 2022 edition of the Golden Globe Race will be the
third edition of the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. The race starts
on September 4, 2022, from Les Sables-d'Olonne in France. Event Info: https://goldengloberace.com/
