This spring, Ronnie Simpson was in California, helping U.S. Patriot Sailing suss out a Class40 that had just been donated to the nonprofit. He was hoping to get it set up in time for a doublehanded Pacific Cup run from San Francisco to Hawaii in July. But after a couple of weeks of sailing, he and fellow team members realized the time frame was just too tight to do it right—so they hit the brakes, instead refocusing on using the new ride to bring more military veterans into racing and sailing and taking the longer view toward next year’s race with a full team of vets onboard.
When one feels the pressure of time, it takes maturity and perspective to slow down, reassess, and move onward with more focused purpose. These two intangible but critical assets, which Simpson has earned through intense experience, are sure to come into play as he seeks a bid for the 2028 Vendée Globe after his unplanned departure from the Global Solo Challenge aboard the Open 50 Shipyard Brewing. Despite a solid race from the start in A Coruña, Spain, last October, sailing 21,250 nautical miles and clearing the three Great Capes, Simpson’s race came to a crashing end in February with just 5,700 miles to the finish, when he was dismasted in the South Atlantic. Having cut away his rig and with violent weather in the offing, he chose to accept rescue by a merchant ship that had diverted to his position.
“It is a tough blow to fully devote yourself to one singular goal for a year and a half and then to fail in that endeavor,” Simpson wrote on Instagram accompanying a photo of the boat as he left her behind. “I am down but not out. I will be back, and I will be stronger than ever.”
His attitude is true to form. Simpson started sailing after recovering from grievous injuries he suffered in an RPG attack outside Fallujah, Iraq, where he was serving after enlisting in the U.S. Marines at age 18. After spending more than two weeks in a coma, he eventually recovered, returned home, and tried to put a life back together (“Bluewater Warrior, Part II” January/February 2024). He took up sailing after learning about a round-the-world race; the decision, he says, changed his life, and he began to dedicate his sailing to reaching the goal of making it to the starting line as a contender in a solo round-the-world race.
When the Global Solo Challenge was announced, Simpson entered a 1994 Open 50 designed by David Lyons that had raced in two BOC Challenges, once as Newcastle Australia under Alan Nebauer and then as Balance Bar under Brad Van Liew. The race’s goal was to provide a more affordable, doable, round-the-world solo nonstop event for sailors, encouraging participants—mostly amateurs rather than professionals—in a variety of boats and using a pursuit start based on the boats’ projected speeds.
“He created something amazing, and it gave me the chance,” Simpson says of race organizer Marco Nannini. “He gave us the ability to have something to dream about and make the dream become real…he achieved one key thing, which is important to someone like me; he created a solo nonstop round-the-world race that anyone can do if they want to go and do it. Having a race where you can show up in a first-generation Class40 or an old IMOCA 60 or an old Open 50 or a very nice, new racer-cruiser…it gives you the chance to do it and even win on virtually any budget.”
Simpson started on October 29, 2023, with the largest cohort of the race, including fellow Americans David Linger and Cole Brauer, both on Class40s. (Philippe Delamare, who would win the race on his Actual 46, Mowgli, started on September 30. Brauer would finish second on March 7, Linger sixth on April 21. Of the 16 starters, all but seven had dropped out.)
Brauer and Simpson quickly became the two to beat in their group of starters as they made their way down the Atlantic toward the Cape of Good Hope. But equipment issues that Simpson attributes to a 30-year-old boat and limited funding—until Shipyard Brewing stepped in to sponsor him a few months before the start—began immediately and would plague him throughout the race.
Eventually he diverted for four days in Tasmania for repairs (permissible under race rules). That put him a week behind Brauer and, more significantly, into weather she didn’t have to contend with rounding Cape Horn and heading into the South Atlantic.
“She had a way faster boat, but my boat did have a waterline advantage,” Simpson says. “If my waterline was going to help me at any point it was going upwind in the Atlantic.” Instead, he ran into wave after wave of violent headwinds. He was in third place when he dismasted falling hard off a wave. “I don’t have a reason to believe that any components of the rig or rigging fittings or attachments failed. I think it was the compression failure of the mast tube itself due to a huge dynamic shock load when we landed off of a wave. That’s what it felt like.”
As grateful as he is for Shipyard Brewing’s support and sponsorship, Simpson remains frustrated that he couldn’t be as prepared as he wanted to be. But he’s also philosophical: “I was doing the best I could with the hand I was dealt and the resources I had at the time…even after I made a pitstop, I didn’t lose a single place.”
He also believes that his showing did not hurt his chances for gaining a sponsor for a Vendée Globe campaign in 2028—his ultimate goal.
“I think I definitely proved without a doubt I’m capable of getting a boat and sailing it very competitively, getting it around the three capes. I don’t think the failure of the rig discounts me from being a viable Vendée candidate,” he says.
In a blog post shortly after the dismasting, he elaborated: “Starting with an old, funky boat and no money, I managed to get to the starting line and become a viable American contender in a solo around-the-world race. I fought for the win for the first half and fought for a podium the second half, before dismasting more than three-quarters of the way around the world and after the three Capes. I had a roadmap back to Europe and was looking at third, or at worst, fourth place out of 16 starters and some 60 original entries. From the outside looking in, I think it’s clear that I am a good sailor and capable of getting a solid boat and good partners and mounting a viable campaign for the Vendée Globe. At least a budget campaign with a classic boat to start, and hopefully a more well-resourced campaign with more experience four years later.”
His sailing this summer with U.S. Patriot Sailing continues his advocacy of that organization, a nonprofit that supports veterans navigating the transition to civilian life, rehabilitation after injury, and the complex life challenges associated with combat deployments.
“Sailing is something so foundational in my life and therapeutic in my life, and U.S. Patriot Sailing is impacting a lot of veterans’ lives through sailing,” Simpson says. “We’re going to use [the newly donated Class40] as a training platform to train some other veteran sailors within the organization.”
June/July 2024
