Orange triumphs on the seas of the world: the Dutch sailing team wins the GLOBE40 race!

Hold on to your hats, Dutch people! It’s time to wave the orange flags and put on your best sailing jacket, because the Dutch sailing team Sec Hayai have won the GLOBE40 – one of the greatest sailing races in the world! On March 15 at nineteen minutes to nine, the team finished second in the final Stage 8 in Lorient, France. But thanks to their previous victories in other stages, skippers Frans Budel and Ysbrand Endt are now the proud winners of this unique round-the-world race. With this they put themselves and the Netherlands on the map as true sailing champions!

Unique performance
The Globe40 is a race that has been described as “a lifelong dream” and is the most accessible of the three toughest sailing races in the world. It’s fantastic to see that a Dutch team has won this race and can compete with the best sailors in the world.

Frans and Ysbrand covered a distance of over 33,000 nautical miles (over 61,000 (!) km) and have been the overall leaders since last October. They left the other participants behind and prove that Dutch sailors belong to the top. This achievement is matched only by Conny van Rietschoten many years ago, who won the Whitbread Round the World Race (now The Ocean Race).

The route/stages
The route and the stages of the Globe40 are impressive and, let’s say, cross-border. From Morocco to Cape Verde, then to Mauritius, Auckland in New Zealand, Papeete in Tahiti, Ushuaia in Argentina, Recife in Brazil, Grenada and finally back to Lorient in France. The Sec Hayai team has gone through all these steps successfully and finally came home a winner!

It was even more exciting during the last leg of the race, where there was still a boat that could have snatched victory from Sec Hayai. But the skippers Craig Horsfield and Oliver Bond of the American boat Amhas were no longer able to catch up with the Dutch and Frans and Ysbrand emerged victorious. On March 25, they will be welcomed as heroes in the home port of Jachtclub Scheveningen. Let’s welcome them all warmly and congratulate them on their fantastic achievement!