165 days at sea, no GPS: Quebecer joined international crew for global race
CBC
Catheryne Langford was at the start of a five-and-a-half month sailing voyage around the world when she spoke with her grandmother for the last time by satellite phone.
Her boat was taking on water and the line was fuzzy as Langford held the phone up in the air, trying to find a signal on deck.
"It was really chaotic," said Langford, who had been told her grandmother's health was rapidly declining and warranted an emergency call back home.
"I was calling on the phone, crying.… It was really like a movie scene."
About a month before, in September 2023, she had boarded a Swan 57 sailboat with 10 strangers to spend 165 days at sea with no technology or navigational guides as part of the inaugural Ocean Globe Race.
When she and her crew aboard the Explorer arrived at their first stop in Cape Town, South Africa, Langford received the news that her grandmother had died while she was at sea.
"I had to say goodbye to her by phone," said Langford. "My world on shore was falling apart."
After completing the journey around the world last month, Langford, who is from eastern Quebec's Magdalen Islands, says the race pushed her outside her comfort zone.
She was the only Canadian to join one of the teams of amateur sailors in the first edition of the global race.
Just over 200 people were selected out of thousands of applicants, says race founder Don McIntyre.
"The definition of adventure is any outcome with any activity with an unknown outcome. And that's something that is integral to the human spirit," said McIntyre.
"And now everyone's talking about it and there's a lot of interest in the next edition, which will be in 2027."
A lifelong sailor from Australia, in 2014, McIntyre had the idea to recreate the Golden Globe Race — the first solo non-stop race around the world.
McIntyre's concept included amateur crews of eight to 12 people, paper charts, sextants (navigational devices that require no electricity or GPS) — and no autopilot.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.
The toxic drug crisis has taken more than 47,000 lives in Canada since 2016 and the synthetic opioid fentanyl has become a household name. But now, what's believed to be an even more potent class of synthetic drugs is showing up in drug busts across the country: nitazenes.