Golden Globe Race loses two contenders to Chichester Class after a frightening night off Lanzarote

The 2026 Golden Globe Race has its first real setbacks of the voyage. Guy deBoer and Selim Yalçin have both been forced into the race's Chichester Class, the non-competitive division reserved for anyone who needs outside help, an unscheduled stop, or repairs beyond what the rules allow while still racing, after separate mechanical failures took them out of contention for the main trophy. A third skipper, Louis Kerdelhué, triggered a genuine safety scare off Lanzarote that had race organisers and local rescue coordination searching for him before he turned up safe and well.

DeBoer's problem had been sitting on his boat since before the race started. A pre-race safety inspection in Les Sables-d'Olonne flagged hairline cracking around a chain plate fitting on Spirit's deck, assessed at the time as low risk and cleared to continue, race organisers say.

On the passage down to the Canaries, deBoer began hearing sounds from the fitting and noticing further signs of stress under load, and made the call himself to stop rather than push on. He's now tied up in Lanzarote, facing structural repairs that will need to pass an independent survey before he's allowed back to sea, and the stop itself puts him out of the running for the main GGR classification regardless of how the repair goes.

Selim Yalçin's exit from contention came from a different direction. His HF radio failed overnight, and with race rules requiring working communications equipment, he judged it unsafe to continue without it. He's altered course for Cádiz on the Spanish mainland to get the radio, or possibly its antenna tuning unit, replaced, and will resume from there in Chichester Class once he's back underway.

Louis Kerdelhué's day was the more serious one. His boat, IE Charge, suffered a spinnaker wrap around the forestay a few miles off the coast, and a passing yacht that came alongside to check on him found the sails flogging and no one visible on deck. Unable to raise him by hailing, the other vessel reported the boat as unattended and not under command, heading toward the coast. Race organisers and local rescue coordination scrambled to locate him, before confirming he'd been below deck the whole time and was never in any danger. He made his own way into the marina under sail shortly after.

The race at the front has continued much as it was through all of this. Damien Guillou and Pat Lawless remain clear at the top, both through Lanzarote and pulling away from the rest of the fleet. Behind them, the battle for third has only got tighter: Andrea Lodolo, Guido Cantini, Etienne Messikommer and Daniel Pinsky are separated by barely a day's sailing, the same shadowing contest that's been running for the better part of a week. Henry Wootton has arrived at Lanzarote too, surprised by his own account at where he sits in the fleet after a rough start. Race founder Don McIntyre flagged an interesting pattern for anyone tracking the approach to the islands: boats passing to the west of the Canaries have consistently done better than those going east, and it held again today.

Fourteen boats remain in contention for the main trophy.