Guidelines for establishing a National Association

Globe 5.80 owners are encouraged to approach local yacht clubs to investigate opportunities available to sail with them in local events.

This can be done even before you launch your yacht.

It is quite possible that local sailors, when hearing about and seeing your Globe 5.80 project, may also consider building one, increasing the size of your local fleet. Your local media may also be interested in what you’re doing. So tell them when you have something to show! If you’re then invited to join that club and sail, you will meet all their usual safety requirements and you’re ready for a lot of fun!

Once the local Globe 5.80 fleet builds to three or four, we encourage you to form a National Association and consider staging your own events. That decision is entirely yours and NOT compulsary. With a trailer, local yachts can easily travel up to 800km to join a Globe 5.80 event.

So who is going to start your National Association? You, maybe? Why not… it is really simple and not complicated. It starts by just getting to know all the other builders in your country. On Facebook, by email, follow each others builders’ blogs, making comments and helping each other. Then think of it as a few sailors getting together talking 5.80 sailing, yachts and dreams. All very exciting and then someone says, let’s form a group, organise a 5.80 get together and have some fun. Once you get to know each other, make a Zoom Conference and plan a get together. We will be coordinating a regular global builders Zoom conference in the months ahead. It is that simple.

In the beginning you have no organisation, no structure, no paperwork, just a bunch of 5.80 builders with dreams chatting together. Then plan a get together somewhere and say “I will race you to that island and back! We start on clock time, take our own finish time and we have a winner. Woop Woop!” Then someone has bagging rights and others can laugh and you can all chat about it around the bar, or on anchor at the beach! It may even be just a cruise in company to compare boats before racing. BRAVO! You have stated the foundation of forming your National Association and taken the first step. You can make your own national 5.80 t-shirt.

Eventually you can start to make it more formal and we, the International Globe 5.80 Class will help with advice, opinions and some templates. Then you have a National Association and others will be inspired by you member activities and they join with their dream and start building boats.

When planning your official National Association Globe 5.80 event, as a race, or voyage in company, with another 5.80 to build ocean miles, the course should be carefully considered. If it is sailed solo in a coastal manner, the maximum distance of the course should not exceed a distance which could reasonably be expected to allow for a return to the start in less than 24 hours. Anything longer than 24 hours must be sailed with a minimum of two crew. Longer voyages in clear ocean can be solo.

The safety equipment and qualification standard for these official voyages, or races, should first meet your National Maritime Authority requirements, so no local laws are broken, and then you should meet your local sailing national organisation equivalent regulations. If it is serious ocean voyages/races, you need to meet the International Class Globe 5.80 Regs. We will give you advice on that.

It will be very important for longer and offshore/ocean events, that you have organised a shoreside safety watch, with regular communications and preferably a tracking system etc. You will be provided with a 5.80 Event Organisers Template to make sure you are well organised and have not forgotten anything.

An official event should be planned at least six months in advance and does not have to be hard work or complicated. The objective, especially as the local Globe 5.80 fleet grows, is just to get out and sail together and keep the dream alive. Good luck. If you want to do it, we want to help!