A solo sailor Tapio Lehtinen has sent an emergency message from his Asteria sailboat, announced the Golden Globe competition.
Lehtinen had sent an emergency message manually from his boat in the Indian Ocean on Friday morning at 8:54 Finnish time. Since then, the race organizers have not been able to contact Lehtinen by satellite phone.
The real-time tracking device showing Lehtinen’s location on the competition map has also stopped working, the competition organization said on social media. However, according to information updated on Lehtinen’s Twitter account, another personal locator device included in the safety equipment is operational and provides the location.
The signal has been located 450 miles or about 720 kilometers southeast of the coast of South Africa in the Indian Ocean. The nearest ship is more than 400 kilometers away from Lehtinen’s location.
The South African Sea and Air Rescue Center is leading the rescue operation to locate Lehtinen.
Lehtinen’s two closest competitors were 95 and 170 nautical miles away from Lehtinen’s last known location.
Also Lehtinen To a Twitter account (you will switch to another service) information about this situation has been updated.
– The emergency signal transmitter is packed inside the sailboat’s life raft and is activated manually. Another personal locator device belonging to Tapio’s safety equipment is also operational and gives Lehtinen’s location.
The Twitter account says that it’s about race partners Kirsten Neuschäfer is about 95 miles (175 km) southwest of Lehtin, but the race organization has not been able to contact this so far. According to the Twitter account, the fourth in the race Abhilash Tomy is about 170 miles (315 km) south-west of Lehtinen and moves towards Finland.
– The nearest ship is about 270 miles (500 km) away from Tapio’s location. The Cape Town Maritime Rescue Center is coordinating the rescue efforts. The weather conditions in the area are: wind 8-10 m/s, wave height 3-4 meters.
Lehtinen, 64, started on Sunday, September 4 from the port of Les Sables-d’Olonne for the Golden Globe, called the world’s most challenging solo sailing race. It is sailed solo around the globe without stops or modern technology.
Lehtinen was on his way to the Southern Arctic Ocean when the distress signal arrived. Helsingin Sanomat says (you will switch to another service), that at the beginning of the week Lehtinen passed Cape Town and said that he was happy to continue to the Southern Ocean. At that time the boat was intact and in good condition.
Retro competition with 1960s technology
Lehtinen will participate in the race on the same 36-foot Asteria boat that he also sailed on in 2018–19 in his first Golden Globe race. Then he became the sixth person in the history of sailing to complete the world’s longest sailing race from start to finish.
At that time, sailing started from the port of Les Sables-d’Olonne on July 1, 2018. Lehtinen arrived at the finish in Les Sables-d’Olonne on May 19, 2019.
Tapio Lehtinen was a guest on ‘s 8 minutes program in July. He then told about the future solo sailing. You can watch the episode below.
The Golden Globe Race is a retro race where no post-1968 technology is allowed. Lehtinen said that it affects navigation and location determination the most.
Lehtinen navigates with a sextant, which is used to determine the position of the sailboat in relation to celestial bodies, such as the stars. Navigation with the sextant, invented in the 18th century, is slow.
– With a sextant, I measure the height of the sun above the horizon. Then I look at the moment of measurement with a mechanical clock with an accuracy of one second, Lehtinen said.
After that, Lehtinen compares the measurement point with a table book, which lists the heights of celestial bodies at different times. After two such measurements, Lehtinen gets to draw two segments on the map, at the intersection of which the boat is.
Lehtinen told about the lessons of his previous competition
In the first competition, in 1968, only one competitor reached the finish line, since then he was ennobled for his performance Sir Robin Knox-Johnston.
Of the 18 sailors who participated in the 2018–19 competition, five reached the finish line. Lehtinen arrived four months after the winner. The slowness was due to the fact that the bottom of the boat had grown full of gooseneck snails, barnacles. The wrong primer didn’t stop the snails as intended.
Lehtinen told STT in September that, having learned from the previous competition, Asteria now has an ocean-worthy primer, a better wind rudder, new sails and less weight.
– Asteria is in better shape than ever. Now even the bottom paint is oceanworthy, and there should not be a barnacle disaster like the previous race. In a sports competition, you can rarely say that you are trying to do a faster performance than three months earlier, but I have learned from the damage to the base coat and with the help of that lesson, I will speed up my progress by two months, Lehtinen reflected in September.
– I have also reduced the weight of my equipment and materials storage by 700 kilos from the previous race, and in addition, Asteria has a new wind rudder that straightens the boat’s course. It will save time for a couple of weeks. The remaining two weeks will be fought purely with guts, willpower and the spirit of revenge created by the last race.
Even in this year’s race, the barnacles have still disturbed Lehtinen’s sailing. However, on November 14th, Lehtinen had already finished second in the competition. According to Helsingin Sanomat (you will switch to another service) Lehtinen said that he monitored one call for almost 50 hours when he approached Cape Town and headed from there towards the Southern Ocean.
Finnish radio amateurs are allowed to contact Lehtinen through marine stations, and through the organizers, Lehtinen can be contacted by satellite phone at certain times, but he is not allowed to give him weather information or location information.
The story is updated….