Globe40 2028-2029 - Brian McVickers interview

Brian McVickers © Globe40

American skipper with a passion for adventure and exploration, Brian is taking on a new challenge: sailing around the world in the Globe40, alongside his co-skipper, Graeme Esarey.

With more than 45,000 nautical miles under his belt and remarkable sailing experience, including the Northwest Passage and the Bering Sea, he tells us about his journey, his motivations, and his ambitions for this new adventure.

Brian, can you tell us about your sailing background and how you first became interested in sailing?

I started sailing when I was 12-years old in Chicago, on Lake Michigan. I attended a summer program sailing on smaller boats such as Sunfish and Optimist dinghies. I quickly began racing, and learned that I like making sailboats go fast! Everything focused on regattas and competitions across the country. I raced Lasers, 420s, FJs, J22s, J24s and Thistles through grade school into high school where I founded the school's racing team. Then I raced for Old Dominion University on the varsity sailing team in Virginia, dinghys and keel boats against other schools along the east coast of the United States.

In Chicago I worked for three yacht clubs as a racing coach and sailing instructor managing some of the programs. My family had a Tartan 10, which is a one-design 33-foot sloop with a fractional rig, and we raced it very competitively. We had around 45 boats in the fleet, so in the big races we would have 40 to 45 boats on the starting line. I started on the foredeck and moved back to skipper. We raced all of the local NOOD and Cup regattas as well as Lake Michigan multi-day port-to-port races including eleven Chicago to Mackinaw races. I would also sail on other larger boats, including Farr 40s and anywhere I could get a position racing.

In 2000, when my wife Amy and I married, we sold everything we had and moved onto a sailboat in Florida with the intent of traveling. We had an Allied Princess staysail ketch, which was more of a blue-water boat. We lived on our boat, Wildflower, for four years. Two years while we lived and worked in Florida, and then another two years sailing the Caribbean.

Eventually we went back to the mainland to be closer to family and begin raising our own in Arizona. We have two incredible kids, our daughter Charlie and our son Max who are now 21 and 19, eagerly accomplishing their own goals.

Since Arizona is landlocked, our sailing took a bit of a turn towards very intentional expedition sailing. I've been fortunate to carve out a month or two each year to go on big sailing trips. It became more about expedition and adventure sailing, exploring remote areas, and crossing oceans.

Highlights include an initial attempt at the Northwest Passage in 2021 which turned into a crossing the Pacific Ocean up into the Bering Sea and then all the way out to Attu Island, which is at the end of the Aleutian Island chain. Canada had closed access to its waters at the time, but we did get to ski the mountains on Attu! www.kailanivoyage.com

In 2024, after the Canadian waters had opened, I was on a team of seven who successfully transited Northwest Passage, west to east, up over the top of Canada through the sea ice and down the coast of Baffin Island and iceberg alley. At one point we had over 75 large icebergs in view. That was a unique trip because it was on an Open 60, Dog Bark, originally built for the BOC Challenge, saildogbark.com. My Globe40 co-skipper Graeme Esarey had refitted the boat for high-latitude sailing. It is unconfirmed but our team may hold the fastest sailboat transit of the Northwest Passage!

This past August, we took that same boat and sailed from Nova Scotia to Greenland and then over to Iceland, a route that I've also done the other direction from Iceland to Greenland on a Valiant42 named Alchemy. If you've ever had the chance to sail southern Greenland, it's quite spectacular because of the icebergs, sea ice, the fjords, wildlife, local culture,and the impressive remoteness. Navigating that area is quite exhilarating.

You have sailed more than 45,000 nautical miles. What do all these miles mean to you? And which sailing trips or adventures have been the most special for you?

I really enjoy one-design fleet racing regardless of the boat design. I like the one-design aspect because, for the most part, everybody has the same tools and the same type of boat. I think it's a very competitive test, which is wonderful.

I also really enjoy exploring places that are hard to get to. The Arctic is very appealing because it's difficult to get to and not a lot of people get to explore it. To do it by sailboat is very special. That's one of the things I find really appealing about the Globe40: you're going to places in ways that are not easy, and not many people get to participate.

You have sailed in very different places, from the Pacific to the Northwest Passage and the Bering Sea. Do you think this experience will help you in the Globe40?

I certainly hope so. I would say yes. I think a lot of these experiences are what inspired me to do a Globe40 campaign.

There are quite a variety of adverse conditions throughout the areas I've sailed. From the Great Lakes, mini-oceans, to the higher latitudes of the Arctic with sea-ice and icebergs, and the mid latitudes of the Caribbean with its excitable weather. Each offer different conditions challenging for different reasons. You have different weather patterns and different types of water behavior in all locations. The Bering Sea, for instance, is very tumultuous, with long opposing currents up to 17 knots, it's like a sea of rivers!

Over time this has all been good preparation. I really think that the Globe40 will be a very exciting race.

Your background is very much about adventure and expeditions, with huge experience at sea. Why did you decide to take part in the next Globe40 race around the world?

One of the things that appeals to me about the Globe40 is that you're racing around the world. It's a combination of many things.

You're circumnavigating the globe, which in itself is an achievement. The way the Globe40 breaks it into five or six different segments, allows you to enjoy and experience the circumnavigation in a different way.

I very much admire and aspire to the non-stop races around the world. A circumnavigation without racing can be very slow. Circumnavigation with racing can be very competitive, challenging and exciting. But at the same time, part of the idea of circumnavigating the globe is to experience more than just the water.

The beauty of the Globe40 using Class40 is the idea of point-to-point racing around the world without sacrificing the quality of competition or performance. You race, and then at each destination, you experience a different culture from thatarea of the world. What an incredible celebration!

I really appreciate the way the Globe40 has taken all the best things about sailing around the world and combined them into one race.

We were happy to meet you in Lorient, when you came all the way from Arizona to watch the Globe40 finish. Why was it important for you to make this trip and to be on the pontoon at Lorient La Base?

It was very important for me. I wanted to see the boats in person, see the other racers and experience the culture. I wanted to meet the race organisers to get an idea of the event, the drive and the inspiration that contributes to the race itself.

I wanted to speak with the skippers and learn about their experiences. I wanted to hear their stories firsthand and better understand what their challenges were during the race and get some advice from them.

I spoke with most of the boats on the pontoon. Some boats were easier to speak with than others due to language barriers, but it also inspired me to start learning French again. I took French in high school, so I need to get back into it (laugh!). Everyone was incredibly welcoming, from the staff to the skippers and their families, I could not have hoped for a better experience.

I also had the opportunity to visit La Trinité-sur-Mer on the day before La Trin'40, and walk the pontoons studying all of the different Class 40 boats and meeting a few people.

But yeah, I really wanted to see it firsthand. It was everything: meeting the staff and the race directors and learning as much as possible about the event. They gave me a Globe40 poster which hangs on my refrigerator and is the first thing I see every time I walk into my home, wonderful inspiration!

You learn so much more by going there, shaking someone's hand and having a conversation. It was a very valuable experience.

The route for the third edition has now been announced. What do you think about the course? Is there one leg you are especially looking forward to?

I'm really excited about it. Especially the long legs down the Atlantic and across the Indian Ocean. I'm intrigued by these legs near 6,000 nautical miles. One, it's the distance. That's a pretty big chunk, and I think it's a very long distance to cover in comparison to the other stages of the race. I think that type of longest leg in a circumnavigation will have its own challenges that will be unique compared to all the other legs. Speed, durability and endurance all come together!

It's also very far from the United States. The opportunities to go and sail the eastern Atlantic Ocean or the Indian Ocean and other areas like that are not very easy to do just for a general race or recreational sail. You have to make a lot of effort to get there.

So, I think the long legs are going to be very interesting. The shorter legs, where you get a little bit more cultural interaction within a smaller period of time, will also be amazing and add a lot of appeal to the Globe40.

And, of course, we can not forget the rounding of the capes. The Globe40 includes many milestones for an ocean sailor. The opportunities to round the capes will be legendary!

You followed the last Globe40 closely. What did you learn or take away from that race?

In the last race you really started to see the differences between the scow boats and the sharps boats. You saw that difference within the Class40 fleet in general.

For the Globe40 specifically, I thought it was interesting from a race-management perspective to understand and try to figure out how to embrace both designs into a single event while keeping things competitive and enjoyable for the entire fleet.

I also thought it was great to see how all the skippers managed their boats very well throughout the event.

There was one boat that lost a spreader and had to sit out an entire leg and then catch up with the fleet again. I really appreciated that some of the other boats' lended their shore teams to help, and that the race management allowed them to continue participating in the Globe40 event overall.

Because of the amount of effort and work it takes for an individual boat to get to the starting line, the fact that all the boats are embraced as part of the fleet is a very special thing about the race organisation.

You have announced that Graeme Esarey will be your co-skipper for the Globe40. You have already spent a lot of time at sea together. How did you decide to race together?

Initially it was a call or text. A couple of months later, we reinforced the idea somewhere in the Arctic on his boat, Dog Bark, standing watch together. I think I said, "Hey, seriously, how'd you like to go do this Globe40 race?" And he said, "Yeah, let's go do it." Then we pulled up the Starlink and started shopping for boats and studying the race course!

He's a very skilled skipper. He's also very adventurous and competitive, very good on the race course, and he has a lot of experience racing, offshore racing and really everything. He's another person who grew up racing and grew up on the water, with lots of great experience, and he's always up for a challenge.

We have been talking about different ideas of what to do next on sailboats.

A few months ago, really at the beginning of this year, around January. My wife, Amy, gave me a little challenge. She said, "What do you want to do next? What's your next big thing? What do you want to go achieve in the next few years?"

I said, "I don't know. Let me think about it." About a month later, she didn't let it go. She said, "Okay, what do you think? What's your next thing?"

I said, "Well, there's this race called the Globe40." I told her all about it, and she was 100% supportive. She said, "Well, you should go do it. Let's make it happen."

So that really started everything. My next phone call was to Graeme. I said, "Hey, I want to go do the Globe40. What do you think? Do you want to do it with me?"

And so, it all starts to happen when you start talking about it.

You do not have much experience in Class40 yet. How will you prepare for the Globe40 and make sure you are ready for the start?

Put us on a boat and we'll race it! The next steps will really be funding. I have a website prepared, www.mcvickersoceanracing.com, which we'll be publishing this week. The plan is to start securing long-term sponsors.

The way we're approaching it is that we originally thought we were just going to do the Globe40, but really there's so much more to it than that. You have to get the boat, you have to get to know the boat, train, and you have to prepare with the boat. You do need to do some other races and get tiller-time. These are all opportunities for everyone involved.

Then, once you do the Globe40, there's no reason you can't continue to campaign the boat, because now you've got a competitive campaign and you know the boat very well.

The idea is to start looking for long-term partners who are interested in a three-year programme or more, because at minimum it would need to be some sort of multi-year programme to include this next year of preparation and then 2028 preparation leading up to the Globe40 and the race itself into 2029.

So, at minimum, it really is a three-year partnership with sponsors, a brand alignment. We want it to be a true partnership for the sponsors. That way, they get the maximum amount of exposure out of the campaign.

We're doing some calculations and trying to figure out different levels of the campaign. You would have a minimum amount where you say, "Okay, we can get into a good boat and support the campaign through the racing effort." Then there's the next level, where you could say, "Oh, maybe we can buy a little bit nicer boat,"... and it goes up from there.

Our intent is to get a well-made and well-outfitted competitive scow bow.

Do you already have a boat in mind? What would be the ideal Class40 for you to race around the world?

Ideal, I don't know yet. We've been looking at a few, and we definitely want to go with a scow.
I'd like to get a boat that's already qualified for the Globe40, with the extra bulkheads and things like that. I'd like it to be as turnkey as possible, within reason.

What I don't want to do is get a boat where I have to do so much work to get it ready that every project becomes another challenge that could move us away from the goal.

If you've got a boat that needs a lot of work, all those different things you're working on can create problems. If something doesn't go right, it could be over.

So we want a good boat that's proven and well outfitted.
We're learning a lot. Most of the skippers I spoke to on the pontoon completely refit their boats every two years. I think the reality is that, going into something like the Globe40, you want to have as new and proven equipment as possible. Not only is it a race, it is a test of durability and endurance for the boat and team.

Graeme and I are competitive by nature. When we look at racing, if we're going to race, we're going to get into it. So we immediately went to the idea of the scow bow because it seems to be the best way to do it based on the trajectory of the Class40 fleet.

We're already shopping and trying to figure things out. Although each Class40 boat is part of the box class, each boat is surprisingly different from the next one, whether it's the cockpit layout, the interior or the way the running rigging is put together.

It's a fun, and important challenge to find the right boat.

You have worked in adventure, exploration, and outdoor media for more than 25 years. How would you like to share your Globe40 experience during the race?

Both Graeme and I have extensive backgrounds in the outdoor, overland, adventure, travel, marine, and sailing markets. My background in media, journalism, video production, photography, and podcast will certainly contribute to sharing the Globe40 experience. There is a unique story to tell in the modern sailing circumnavigation of the globe. We plan to document the entire experience running up to, and during the race. Today, and even more so in the years to come, connectivity from the middle of the world's oceans will allow for a front row seat.

We also want to take this Globe40 opportunity to showcase opportunities within the sailing and marine industries. We want to interview the people we meet along the way and document their professions in an effort to help others find opportunities.