In 2021 I built a 19' boat from a kit. The boat is a Class Globe 5.80, designed for home building, but with ocean racing credentials.
I kind of accidentally entered the first race ever for these boats, the Transat. I never intended to race the boat, but things seemed to fall into place so I ended up in Portugal in November 2021 with a boat that I'd only sailed for about 24 hours before rocking up on the start line of the qualifier to Lanzarote. The main event was the Lanzarote to Antigua leg, which this video is about.
I'm not really a racer, let alone an ocean crosser, but I learnt a few things on the way and, apart from this video being epically nerdy and probably quite boring, I hope it helps my fellow 5.80 builders with lessons learned from my mistakes, but maybe also help inspire others to get their boats in the water.
Take what i say in the video with a pinch of salt, at the time it made sense, and may not now. I'm not a very experienced boat builder or even a great sailor, so a good proportion of what is in the video may well be complete rubbish... :)
For other random boaty stuff (including a build blog for the boat) my site is here: northcardinal.co.uk/
For more info on the event or the boats, the official Class Globe 5.80 site is here www.classglobe580.com/