KIRSTEN NEUSCHÄFER GGR 2022 APRIL NEWSLETTER

Recent Press and Interviews:

Kirsten was honored to have a chance to discuss the Golden Globe Race and women in sailing with Tracy Edwards. Thanks to Charly Hewett, Kaia Bint Savage, Libby Mudditt and particularly Tracy for making the time. Watch the full conversation HERE.
Thanks to Skip Novak for his kind words and supportive column in Yachting World.
Thanks to Marina Guedes of Maré Sonora for a great conversation. Click HERE to follow Marina and listen to Part 1 of the podcast. Part 2 airs on Monday, April 26th.

We are excited to announce new Kirsten GGR merchandise available just in time for the summer - look good and support Kirsten’s journey!

Click HERE to check out the full line.

Our big purchase this month will be the Victron controllers, chargers and other electronic items totaling approximately $2500.

If you are in a position to contribute toward this purchase via GoFundMe or Paypal we are most appreciative.

KIRSTEN’S APRIL UPDATE:

Since the last newsletter, we have made significant progress and also received an overwhelming amount of donations and corporate discounts.

Firstly, we received a very generous donation from William Cumming via GoFundMe, for the entire amount to cover the purchase and shipping of the Hydrovane unit. This is fantastic progress! We promptly ordered the unit and had it sent from England. We are now busy fabricating the brackets to mount it. This is a key item for this race, and William’s contribution will not be forgotten, as the windvane will be like the only other crew member aboard, to helm! We just recently hung the rudder again, after re-aligning the gudgeons, and getting new rudder pins. We also had new rudder cheeks made from beautiful oak – sanded and varnished to perfection – by Baltic Creek Woodworks. These will soon be mounted, with the new ash tiller which was specially fabricated and sent from Cape George Marine Works . Now that the rudder has been returned, we can start working on the windvane mounting brackets, which, of course, Eddie will be fabricating himself. Keep watching our progress to see the unit soon installed!

In addition to this, we installed a new transmission installed, prop shaft re-installed and aligned, new, super-cool PSS shaft seal from PYI Inc., who also provided a beautiful 2-bladed, feathering Max prop. Our Force 10 stove is en route thanks to a wholesale discount provided by Fisheries Supply.

Whale Marine reached out with a generous offer to provide bilge pumps which will arrive soon. Earlier in the month a few boating friends in Maine arranged a shipment of donated items - among them an SSB, winch, jammers and various very useful items as well as a generous financial donation from Cabot Lyman, solar panels from James Bennett, lines and a GPS from John Snyder, Angelique wood from Eric Sewell and milled by Danny Daniello.

Minnehaha is rapidly being reassembled!

After what felt like weeks and weeks of fairing and sanding, priming, touching up on fairing and then sanding again, we now have Minnehaha's deck, coach roof and cockpit as good as perfect. As anyone who has done painting will know, the prepping, which consists of sanding and subsequent cleaning away of dust and masking the things that are not to be painted, is the biggest task of all - and a clean surface the key to a successful paint job. We started by rolling the paint on with sponge rollers, but Eddie, being the perfectionist that he is, was not happy with the result, so the very same evening he decided that he would spray the paint on instead. Click HERE to watch the time-lapse video. With almost all the deck fittings removed, it only entailed a little extra masking and taping. The result is an exceptionally, smooth, professional finish - wait till we have the topcoat on! Minnehaha is starting to look really cheerful, and yet another step closer to getting re-launched!

Using the Douglas Fir wood that was donated very kindly by Ranney Day Custom Milling and with the use of Baltic Creek - Custom Woodwork’s kiln, sander and other tools and WEST SYSTEM Epoxy Eddie has done an absolutely amazing job of rebuilding the bowsprit.

We recently remounted the bowsprit, and it looks really great and solid. We also had a new bobstay fitting sent from Cape George Marine Works – machined out of finest bronze! It was a bit of a dusty, itchy job of grinding the old one out in the close confines of the anchor locker, but now that that is done, we can soon glass the new one in, and then remount the dolphin striker.

Our 2-bladed, feathering Max Prop propellerfrom PYI Inc. arrived this month!

This is such an exquisite piece of engineering and so exciting to get one of these for Minnehaha! It will, no doubt, under power, propel the boat superbly, but cause minimal drag while under sail. A beautiful piece of engineering! And you can tell that a lot of thought was put into sending it: it comes with all the tools, grease, and anything else you could need to fit it!

We will also soon be finalizing the order of our new rig from US SPARS and are very excited to be working with them on all the fine details! Langan Design Partners have been giving us invaluable advice and have done various calculations and drawings on all sorts of questions related to the spars and rig. They have designed the external chainplates, that will be super-sturdy, and which Eddie will be fabricating soon, so that we will be ready for when the new rig arrives! It is not only a real pleasure, but also very reassuring, working with such top-notch professionals!

We would like to give a very big thank you to Chuck Gates for his continued support in this project, Peter Taylor from Koru Solutions for all his help and assistance, Jon Johansen from Maine Coastal News, for taking an interest in this story and to Gregory Dexter for offering ongoing support and encouragement.

We owe thanks to many people, including but not limited to Mark Lindborg, William Cumming, Peter Taylor, Cabot Lyman, Langan Design Partners, PYI Inc. US SPARS, Whale, Baltic Creek Woodworks, Scott Ranney, Larry Rosenfeld, James Bennett, Jon Johansen, Gregory Dexter, Eric Sewell, Danny Daniello – and last, but certainly not least, the Prince Edward Islanders for their ongoing support - and Eddie Arsenault for excelling in every single piece of work he does on Minnehaha, and for all the additional effort, thought, time and ideas that he puts into this project!

About the race: The Golden Globe Race 2022: a solo, non-stop, unassisted circumnavigation. This retro race is based on the first solo circumnavigation race that took place in 1968. In order to stay true to the original circumnavigation, boats are all older designs, no bigger than 36 foot- and modern navigational technology, like GPS, is not permitted. Instead she will be depending on her skills in celestial navigation and dead reckoning. The route for the race is France, down the Atlantic, east-about the Southern Ocean, and back up the Atlantic to France- an approximate distance of 30,000 nautical miles and anywhere from 7 to 9 months or more at sea.