Mike Golding

Mike is an English yachtsman, who is one of the few yachtsmen to have raced round the world non-stop in both directions. He also held the solo record for sailing round the world westabout between 1994 and 2000.

Mike, who is a member of Royal Southampton Yacht Club, is the eponymous co-founder of the commercial company Mike Golding Yacht Racing Ltd, a professional and competitive company whose goals are to compete and win on the water and to deliver. His partner in this venture is Jorgen Philip-Sorensen.

Mike led the team Group 4 to second place in the British Steel Challenge in 1992–3. He did one better in the next edition the BT Global Challenge 1996–7, taking first place with a new team of amateur sailors, again onboard Group 4.

Mike came seventh in the 2000–2001 Vendée Globe solo non-stop round the world race having lost seven days to the dismasting of his Open 60, again called Group 4. His present Open 60 campaign is sponsored by Ecover, a Belgian ecological cleaning products company which has sponsored his team since 2001.

In 2004 he won the IMOCA World Championship and successfully defended his title the following year, in which he also won the 2005 FICO World Championship.

In the 2004 Vendée Globe, Mike finished third despite losing his keel an extremely serious accident which has caused boats in previous Vendée Globe races to overturn almost instantly on the last day of the race. He sailed the last 50 miles with a tiny sailplan to keep the boat upright.

In October 2006 he started the Velux 5 Oceans yacht race. He courageously rescued fellow sailor Alex Thompson in the Southern Ocean, then the yacht Ecover had a mast failure with them both aboard.

He announced he was retiring from the race on making emergency landfall in Cape Town.

In March 2007 Mike announced a technical partnership with fellow British sailor Dee Caffari to allow both the UK entries in the Vendée Globe 2008–9 round the world yacht race to work together.