Please select your home edition
Edition
Palm Beach Motor Yachts

Steve White - solo round the world the 'wrong way'

by Nancy Knudsen on 11 Sep 2010
Steve White - came late to sailing SW
Dee Caffari has done it, now Steve White is setting out to do it too.

He's going to sail solo, round the world, non-stop and unassisted, AND the 'wrong way', AND break the current record.


The 'wrong way'? It just means that the world's wind in the Southern Ocean, where one must venture to round the globe without stopping, are all westerlies, so the logical way to go is to run before the wind, travelling ever to the east. Those who either have masochistic tendencies, are bored with their past circumnavigations or who just have something to prove to themselves, occasionally do it the other way.

Now the 37-year-old father of four, who has become arguably one of the world's greatest long distance sailors with his competitive sailing, finishing eighth in the last Vendee Globe solo round the world race, is bent on that most grueling solo journey of all, against the wind and the current, travelling west.

Steve didn't even sail as a child, and has garnered much praise for his unaided meteoric rise as a solo sailor. He started out, amazingly enough, as a jockey, then moved on to restoring classic cars. Then he worked in a small boatyard, and developed an ambition to compete in the big ocean races. With no backing, he was obliged to mortgage his house no less than three times to further his ambitions.

His intended 22,000-mile circumnavigation will have Steve single-handedly sailing a Volvo Open 70, a state of the art 70 foot long monohull which would usually be crewed by ten people. These boats are at the cutting edge of modern technology, and currently hold the record for the fastest 24 hour run at 596.6 miles at an average speed of 24.4 knots, topping out at 39 knots! The boat is made from carbon fibre, has a canting keel and was purpose designed for downwind sailing. It seems a great challenge even to sail it solo, and upwind, and he'll be doing it for many months.


The current 'westabout' solo round-the-world record was set in 2004. It is held by Frenchman Jean Luc Van Den Heede who made it in 122 days, 14 hours and four minutes. White, who acknowledges his is 'obsessive' about the projects that he embarks on, will be trying to break that record.

Steve will sail across the historic Ushant – Lizard start line, then down to Cape Horn before turning right underneath it and into the Southern Ocean, where he will spend up to sixty days battling into the wind and against the current in some of the harshest conditions on the planet before turning right again one last time below the Cape of Good Hope, to head North and home to the finish line.

Due to the extreme nature of this record, only five sailors have made this attempt in the past forty years, including Dee. Sailing legend Sir Chay Blyth was the first to set the record onboard 'British Steel', in what was referred to by The Times in 1970 as the 'Impossible Voyage'.

Interviewed by CNN earlier this month, he described the coming voyage as 'like running up a downhill escalator, only much wetter.'

Follow Steve's record attempt over the next year at his http://www.whiteoceanracing.com/!website

Zhik 2024 DecemberHenri-Lloyd Dynamic RangeC-Tech 2021 America's Cup 728x90 BOTTOM

Related Articles

2025 29er Europeans at Lake Garda Day 1
Five teams tied at the top Ikke Huber / Liam Berger (Switzerland) lead the charge after sweeping all 3 races in the Green fleet — an impressive perfect score of 2 points. Lucas & Moritz Hamm, the dynamic twin duo from Germany, matched their Swiss rivals with consistency and pace.
Posted on 3 Jul
Onboard reporters in the Course des Caps
Enjoying the challenge of bringing the race to life In the Course des Caps - Boulogne sur Mer - Banque Populaire du Nord, the Onboard Reporters, or OBRs, are back doing a wonderful job of bringing IMOCA racing to life with pictures, videos, interviews and reports from the boats.
Posted on 3 Jul
Rolex TP52 Worlds in Cascais Day 2
Consistent American Magic Quantum Racing move clear ahead American Magic Quantum Racing stepped three points clear at the top of the 2025 Rolex TP52 World Championship leaderboard today in Cascais, Portugal on the strength of a first and third from two breezy races.
Posted on 3 Jul
505 UK Nationals at Weymouth
Michael Sims and Carl Gibbon hold back Howie Hamlin and Andy Zinn Apart from one 'stumble' in Race 7, the two leading boats were almost invisibly tied together to the point that after 8 races, they were tied on points.
Posted on 3 Jul
Robert H. Tiedemann Classics Regatta concludes
A triumphant start to the Classic Yacht Challenge Series The 2025 Robert H. Tiedemann Classics Regatta, hosted by the New York Yacht Club, delivered a spectacular start to this year's Classic Yacht Challenge Series.
Posted on 3 Jul
Unforgettable Transatlantic Race 2025 finish
First to arrive was Ocean Fifty Calamity, co-skippered by Timo Tavio and Kimo Nordström. It was rush hour in Cowes on Day 15 of the west-to-east Transatlantic Race 2025, as boats crossed the finish line in Cowes within minutes of each other after an epic 3,000-mile battle for top honors in IRC 1.
Posted on 3 Jul
iQFOiL World Championships set to open in Aarhus
Olympic medalists and world-class riders gather in Denmark for the biggest iQFOiL event of the year. The stage is set in Aarhus for a spectacular week of high-speed sailing as the iQFOiL World Championships 2025 kick off on 4 July, bringing together over 200 of the world's best windsurfers from more than 40 nations.
Posted on 3 Jul
The Ocean Race Europe to showcase new race tracker
Developed with PredictWind to revolutionise race coverage The Ocean Race, often described as the toughest test of a team in sport and widely recognised as a leader in impactful ocean health initiatives, and PredictWind, a global leader in marine weather forecasting, are collaborating on a new race tracker.
Posted on 3 Jul
Oliver Heer confirms 2028 Vendée Globe ambition
The Swiss skipper aims to return for the 2028 edition of the legendary solo race with a newer boat After completing the Vendée Globe 2024 on his first attempt, Oliver Heer, the Swiss-German skipper of Tut gut Sailing, has confirmed his intention to return for the 2028 edition of the legendary solo race.
Posted on 3 Jul
SailingFast to provide unrivalled event support
During the WASZP Games at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy SailingFast UK is set to land in Weymouth on the 8th of July and will be on-site until the 26th of July to provide the GOLD STANDARD in event support.
Posted on 3 Jul