OK …. so let’s be honest, this trip isn’t ever going to be “cheap”!
But “cheap” is relative and I prefer to think of it in terms of “value” … and, without being too clichéd, for me the value is immeasurable.
Here’s a simple comparison in case it is useful for people thinking about it (my finance background is coming out in this post).
On the raw headline numbers the 2025 – 26 Round The World Race (4 weeks training + full circumnavigation) comes in at about £51,500, and the next edition in 2027 – 28 is about 10% more at £56,795. Given the races are biennial, that’s a pretty reasonable price increase at a bout 5% per year. Interestingly the individual legs price increase at an average of around 3% a year (so stick your savings in a fund for a while!)
The circumnavigation itself, is a fairly material discount of about 20-25% on the cost of the eight individual legs. It’s almost like getting Leg 7 and Leg 8 for free!
Obviously, this isn’t all the cost involved. It’s time to start adding in the extras …
Some obvious ones to start:
- Travel to training and to ports (costs might be higher for single and multi leggers)
- Accommodation for training and in port stopovers
- Insurance – Clipper Race Management Team is organising a policy and is estimating about £450 a leg
- Race Crew Fund – Clipper Race Management Team estimate about £50 per leg
- Visas and Vaccinations – I’ve taken a guess here at £500
- Communications – not cheap from a boat in the middle of an Ocean!
Some less obvious ones, or ones which you may not need:
- Additional kit – Race Crew kit and Team Kit is provided, but there will be other kit required e.g. sleeping bag, dry bags, mid-layers, base layers, gloves, boots etc. Some people may already have suitable kit if they have sailed before, and I do have some kit, but some of my inshore / coastal stuff isn’t going to cut it!
- Dry suit – this is a big question among participants. Some people are saying it should be used on big legs like Leg 3: the Roaring Forties, Leg 4: Australian Coast-to-Coast and Leg 6: The Mighty Pacific, but others think you might only use for a few days. I’m going to wait to take some advice from Skipper on this as the latest version from Musto prices at £2,300 (although Clipper Race Crew do get a pretty hefty discount I believe). Irritatingly, I had an unused previous version that I had bought a few years ago for a possible Fastnet race, and sold it just a few months ago on ebay for £250! Ultimately this will come down to a combination of comfort and safety, but I have a pretty high expectation of continuing with offshore and ocean sailing after the race, so it should get some use
- Tech Kit – I’m going to try to capture as much footage as I can on the race, so will likely take some cameras, and maybe a hard drive etc. but we will
- In-port care package – Not really sure on the logistics for circumnavigators, but in the few days in port between legs I will have an opportunity to replenish / replace stuff or get some home comforts, clean clothes etc. that I wouldn’t take on the boat. I’m accounting for the possible costs of shipping and customs
There will be some more posts on kit as I continue to do some research and speak to other participants, the Race Management Team and Skippers.
With all the above taken into consideration, that’s another c. 50% / £25k to budget for … and I’ve then added on a 10% contingency for unexpected costs and missed items or low estimates.
All told, it puts my budget at about £85,000 for the full circumnavigation! I checked with a friend who did it about 10 years ago, and he said his budget was bout £80k, and I have heard from others of budgets between £70k and £100k.
I’m in the (un)fortunate position – depending on how you look at it – of not owning a home or having any dependents, so I can largely cut my “at home” costs down to zero, other than possible storage costs for a few things, but I do still need to plan on covering my costs up until the race, and to add in a bit of a buffer on the other side. I’ve projected out until December 2026 to give me some time to work out what I will do for a living when I get back!
It will be an important consideration for other participants though, as may well have families, homes or other commitments to think about while away.
Currently, I should have enough income between now and August 2025 to cover my living expenses, supported by the sale of a few assets (boys toys that I can’t justify keeping) to consider that period a wash and fairly evenly matched (the tax man will even be helping me out …) and I have enough set aside in savings and investments to cover the remaining budget for the race.
That said, I will still be looking to see if I can get some sponsorship to help reduce my personal outlay as even though I will be escaping the cost of living crisis in the UK for a year, its still an enormous amount of money! This will likely be combined with some charity fundraising, but more on this to come later.
Clipper Ventures very helpfully let’s you pay for participation in instalments with zero interest, spread on a monthly basis until the race start. As a bit of a late entrant (I originally went on the webinar for the 2027-28 race, but found out there were still slots for circumnavigators in 2025-26), my payments are only spread over 8 months, but you can see that this would be really helpful for people joining the next edition and having 24+ months to spread the cost.
So my monthly budget tracker ends up looking something like this … and I will keep it updated month to month.
I told you I was a finance geek …
For more background: www.clipperroundtheworld.com/
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