RORC Member Focus | Jangada Comes Full Circle
RORC Honorary Treasurer Richard Palmer on Racing Around the World
When Richard Palmer and Rupert Holmes crossed the finish line of the 2025-26 Globe40 round the world race in Lorient aboard Class40 Jangada Racing, they completed one of offshore racing’s great endurance tests.
The Globe40 is a double handed round the world race for Class40 yachts, sailed in demanding ocean legs with stopovers across several continents. The 2025-26 edition took the fleet from Europe into the Atlantic, across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, around Cape Horn and back through the Atlantic to Lorient in France.
“The Globe40 was a step into another dimension. Jangada Racing logged 33,890 nautical miles by GPS, against a great circle route of 29,232 nautical miles.” Commented Richard Palmer.
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JPK 1010 Jangada in the 2022 Sevenstar Round Britain & Ireland Race © James Tomlinson/RORC
For RORC members, the achievement carried special resonance. Richard is RORC’s Honorary Treasurer, but he is also one of the Club’s most accomplished amateur offshore sailors. Alongside Rupert Holmes, he has built a formidable double handed record under the Jangada name, including victory in the RORC Transatlantic Race, the RORC Season’s Points Championship, and overall victory in the 2022 Round Britain & Ireland Race by the narrowest of margins.
It was not just a race of boat speed, but of seamanship, endurance, judgement, sleep management, repairs and trust. Yet for Palmer, the foundation for that challenge was laid much closer to home, in years of RORC racing.
Southern Ocean weather © Jangada Racing
“RORC racing is an enormous foundation,” said Richard. “There is a huge learning curve from all those RORC races. It is about weather, routing, reading the clouds around you, sailing the boat, manoeuvres and transitions. We probably do more transitions on a RORC race than we did on some of the legs of this race.” The Round Britain & Ireland Race was especially valuable preparation. It may not have the vast rolling swell of the Southern Ocean, but it has nearly everything else. “Round Britain and Ireland throws everything at you,” said Richard. “You have high pressure, flat calms and hard conditions. It is a race that teaches you a lot.”
The move from Jangada’s previous IRC successes to a Class40 circumnavigation was still significant. The loads were bigger, the systems more powerful and the consequences of getting things wrong much more serious. Yet the core disciplines remained familiar: preparation, seamanship, resilience and good decision making. Richard is modest about his own place within the Club, but believes the race says something important about the ambition that exists within RORC’s membership. “There is a huge range of talent within RORC,” he said. “There are others I look up to. For us, this was about looking for a bigger mountain to climb and a bigger project to take on.”
That mountain was climbed with Rupert Holmes, a sailor Richard describes as the ideal partner for such a demanding race. “Rupert is hugely experienced,” said Richard. “He is a safe pair of hands, a supremely good sailor in terms of sail trim, a fantastic engineer and calm in a crisis.” There was humour too. One of Rupert’s additional qualifications, Richard joked, was that he was “a bit skinnier” and therefore better suited to getting down the tunnel to the transom when work was required in tight spaces. Behind the humour lay the reality of double handed ocean racing. Two sailors, thousands of miles from outside help, have to rely on each other completely. Decisions are shared, mistakes are absorbed and fatigue becomes part of daily life.
Rupert Holmes & Richard Palmer © Jangada Racing
For Jangada, one of the hardest periods came on the leg from the Cape Verde Islands to Réunion, during a brutal week of upwind sailing. “Seven days of relentless beating in high winds and big seas is debilitating mentally and physically,” said Richard. “You are playing through all the scenarios in your mind, and it can be very wearing. I don’t think we were alone in that. Quite a few other crews found it very tough.” At times, the thought of stopping was real. “You think about pulling into Cape Town,” he admitted. “But we carried on.” That, perhaps, is the essence of the achievement. The race was not completed in one grand gesture, but in thousands of decisions to keep going. To reef, repair, rest, eat, steer, check the weather and do it all again.
Cape Horn © Jangada Racing
There were also moments of exhilaration. Jangada reached a top surf speed of 27 knots, with the boat often averaging 15 to 16 knots at the time. “That was both exciting and challenging,” said Richard. Cape Horn was another defining moment, as was the finish itself, but the stopovers were also central to the experience, with family and friends joining the team and turning the race into a shared project rather than a private obsession. “You could not do it without family,” said Richard. “They joined us in most of the stopovers. It becomes a great project, not just a sailing race.”
Jangada Racing celebrate in Lorient © Jean-Marie Liot/Globe40
The finish in Lorient brought Jangada back among the wider world of French and international offshore racing. Figaros, IMOCAs and multihulls were in the same waters, a reminder that Palmer and Holmes had taken their RORC bred offshore experience into one of the sport’s most competitive arenas. For RORC, Jangada’s circumnavigation is more than a notable member achievement. It is a reminder that the Club’s racing culture still produces sailors capable of stepping from Cowes, the Solent, the Fastnet course and the Round Britain & Ireland Race onto the world stage.
Class40 Jangada Racing © Rick Tomlinson
Richard’s message to other members with major offshore ambitions is simple: “There are members with many more sailing miles and victories than us, but the keys to completing this challenge were taking the project seriously, building the right team and never underestimating what we were trying to achieve.
“A huge thank you must go to my co skipper Rupert Holmes, Brett Aarons, who prepared the boat in Cowes, Loïc Féquet our Technical Manager who supported us at the stopovers and to our family, friends and supporters,” commented Palmer. “What RORC racing can teach you is that, even though the mountain may be high, Jangada has shown that it can be climbed.”
Richard Palmer and Rupert Holmes are also planning an evening at the RORC Cowes Clubhouse to share the story of their round the world adventure with members. Details will be announced in due course. Watch this space.
