Golden Globe Race: Christensen's penguin was a dolphin

Damien Guillou leads the Golden Globe Race 2026 by 1,267 miles at the 16:00 UTC tracker update on Friday 13 November (Day 69), with Solarem 17,340 miles from the finish. The margin has shrunk by 21 miles since the previous update, and Henry Wootton's Privateer is back in third, 15 miles ahead of Etienne Messikommer's Bernard. Further back, Gunnar Christensen has been laughing at a supposed penguin that turned out to be a dolphin. The next tracker update is due at 20:00 UTC.

Who is leading the Golden Globe Race?

Here is the tracker order at 16:00 UTC on 13 November, with nautical miles to go and the distance each boat covered in the previous 24 hours. Andrea Lodolo is left out because his position is flagged as out of date.

1. Damien Guillou, Solarem: 17,340 miles to go, 126 miles in 24 hours

2. Ertan Beskardes, Miss Beagle: 18,607 to go, 139 miles

3. Henry Wootton, Privateer: 18,891 to go, 174 miles, the best run of the day

4. Etienne Messikommer, Bernard: 18,906 to go, 113 miles

5. Daniel Pinsky, Exodus: 19,009 to go, 150 miles

6. Guido Cantini, Hannah of Cowes: 19,275 to go, 155 miles

7. Pär Nyman, Lazy Otter: 19,371 to go, 129 miles

8. Isa Rosli, Olleanna: 19,687 to go, 88 miles

9. Gunnar Christensen, Pompoen: 19,792 to go, 100 miles

10. Matt Woodside, Tipi Haere: 19,939 to go, 73 miles

Here is how far each skipper has sailed since the start:

Is Wootton really back in third?

For now. Wootton has only 15 miles in hand, and Bernard had edged ahead at the previous update, so the two have traded places again. Our report on Wootton first edging into third and the piece on why Messikommer is hard to shake show how long these two have been in each other's pockets. Wootton's 174 miles in 24 hours is the longest run of the fleet. Cantini's 155 miles and Pinsky's 150 also beat the leaders' pace, and Pinsky sits more than 100 miles behind Bernard in fifth.

Christensen's penguin turns out to be a dolphin

Life aboard Pompoen involves a lot of coffee. Gunnar Christensen keeps a coffee monitoring board in the cockpit, and on Friday 13th he added a note about the date and answered it with an "uh oh, SpaghettiOs". He then checked the stock, decided another bag was needed, and declared that things were getting serious.

Then something black and white appeared in the water. Christensen first called it a penguin, then reached for his field guide. By his own account it was a southern right whale dolphin, the only dolphin in the southern hemisphere without a dorsal fin, and the guide says it can fool the eye at speed in exactly that way. He laughed at his own penguin call and took the viewers along for what he called the Pumpkin Wildlife Show. The first albatross of the day got a cheerful hello too, and he mentioned that his Southern Ocean beard was coming along nicely.

There is still maintenance to do aboard Pompoen. Gooseneck barnacles are growing on the Hydrovane rudder, which he blames on putting bottom paint on only part of it. He reckons they are not slowing him much and will be cleaned off eventually. The tracker has him on 19,792 miles to go, with only Woodside behind him.

Beskardes keeps up the pace

Ertan Beskardes continues to make steady progress. Miss Beagle covered 139 miles in the 24 hours to this update, and in a broadcast at 19:05 UTC on 12 November she was near 42.13S 27.27E, doing 5.6 knots. He keeps in touch by SSB radio and live stream, and the race office briefing called it a typical, no-fuss Southern Ocean day for him. We covered his Southern Ocean birdwatching in an earlier report.

Friday 13th and the race office

It is not a day to leave port, according to the morning briefing. The race office had fun with sailors' superstitions: bananas are fine, but never whistle on a boat and never leave on a Friday. It said that is why the Globe 5.80 Transat fleet was due to start at one minute past midnight, just into Saturday 14 November local time.

Where is the weather risk for the fleet?

This is our own reading of the PredictWind forecast, not routing advice, as entrants are not given weather routing under the race rules. On the map below the fleet's track runs through a lighter band of 10 to 20 knots between two large areas of 30 knots or more, one to the south-west of the Cape of Good Hope and another to the south-east, around a low near 974 hPa. The race office's morning briefing listed Guillou as the only boat under a weather alert as a system passes.

Looking at the forecast models for the next few days, we see a large area of 35 knots or more moving east on Saturday, with the fleet on its northern edge. By Monday there is a lull of 5 to 15 knots north of about 40S, where most of the fleet sits, with a band of 30 to 40 knots well to the south. By Wednesday the two models we compare disagree about a compact low south-east of Durban, so we would treat that part as uncertain. These are broad forecast indications, not conditions verified at each boat. Our earlier report, After 8,000 miles, the Southern Ocean bares its teeth, covers the heavy weather the fleet has already met.

What to watch next

Keep an eye on the third-place gap between Privateer and Bernard at the 20:00 UTC update, and on whether Pinsky can keep closing from fifth.

Follow the whole race on our dedicated Golden Globe Race 2026 page.