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n February 23, 2025, fourteen international skippers are setting sail from Antigua to race around the world on relatively low-tech, home-made, engineless 19-foot boats. They are going to compete in the first ever Mini Globe Race.

The only American amongst this entire fleet is Joshua Kali. Josh may not hail from the self-proclaimed “Sailing Capital of North Carolina,” but he has multiple connections to it.

Josh was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. And it was there that he met his long-term partner, and now Mini Globe Team Manager, Cathy Cahoon. While Cathy moved out west, where she is currently working in California, she is from Pamlico County. Cathy not only grew up here but is the daughter of Janci and Doug Cahoon of Cahoon Farms, an operation with serious roots in Arapahoe.

Skookum’s first sail was on the Neuse, January 14. All went well, and Josh returned all smiles.

Josh and Cathy were living out in Seattle when, about 4 years ago, while working as a Yacht Technician, Josh heard a podcast featuring Don McIntyre, founder and race chairman of the Golden Globe Race. McIntyre was promoting a new race he was organizing, called the Mini Globe. It piqued Josh’s interest since, after 20 years of serious alpine climbing, “climbing had lost its edge” and he “was looking for a new challenge.”

Josh didn’t have much sailing experience, but he had spent extended periods of time on offshore (tuna) fishing boats. He saw this race as “more of a game of attrition than skill,” and felt he had the mental and physical stamina for it. Plus, Josh stated McIntyre was promoting it more towards “people of my means” than towards the professional sailors typically involved in the exclusive (and expensive) sport of offshore racing.

Josh, onboard Skookum at Sailcraft Marina.

For starters, the boats were not allowed to be commercially built. Each competitor had to build their own McIntyre Class Globe 5.8 (meter) boat from either a set of plans or a kit (although one is able get around this requirement by buying a Globe 580 from a prior owner who did self-built it). Josh decided to purchase a kit and start building. It turns out, however, that the only company in North America authorized to produce these kits is B & B Yachts, located in Vandemere, NC. Therefore, both his boat and his partner have strong Pamlico County connections.

While continuing to work full time, Josh spent the next two and a half years building “Skookum,” a Chinook term that basically means strong, in a “badass” sorta way. He built her at the boatyard where he worked in Seattle. His job as a yacht technician there was fortuitous; not only was he able to acquire his parts and equipment at cost, but he also got the opportunity to get paid while learning and practicing the skills he needed to build his own boat.

Above, inside Skookum, while Josh sails. Lower left, an alcohol stove, and lower right, Josh shows the simple sink with fresh and salt water taps.

As Josh explained, “whether it was planned or by chance, it kept happening that right before I had to start faring fiberglass, installing hatches or painting my boat, I would get assigned this same type of job on someone else’s boat.” As a result, there is nothing on Josh’s boat that looks or feels remotely like an amateur built or installed it, especially with regards to the electronics, which is Josh’s specialty. Suffice it to say, Skookum is impressive.

With regards to the building, however, time became a bit of an issue. Skookum was not launched until October 18, 2024. And since the inaugural Mini Globe Race was starting in Antigua on February 23, the boat only got to spend one month in the waters of the Pacific Northwest.

Unfortunately, that month proved to be a remarkably windless one, so Josh got little to no chance to actually sail the vessel before he had to haul her back out of the water, load her onto a trailer that he modified and drove cross country to . . . you guessed it, Oriental NC.

Skookum was then re-launched at SailCraft Marina and underwent her first serious sea trials in Pamlico County. And on board for the first of those sea trials was long term Pamlico County resident Graham Byrnes, the founder of B&B yachts, the company that produced the kit Josh used to build Skookum.

The boat is in Oriental while Josh, who has “based himself at his in-laws,” provisions and completes all the final tasks required before he sets off from Beaufort. From there, he’ll make the 1,500 mile offshore sail to the race’s starting line in Antigua.

On Skookum’s first voyage, Josh had a special guest: Graham Byrnes of B&B Yachts.

So, even though Josh is not from around here, it certainly seems that Pamlico County has earned bragging rights and can (at least partially) claim this boy and his boat. As a result, folks here may want to follow the two of them while they endure this rather epic adventure. Fortunately, there are many ways to stay connected with them.

One of the easiest ways is to stay tuned to TownDock.net, which has become one of Skookum‘s corporate sponsors – and will be interviewing him along the way (from the 5 designated race re-start locations). The other ways to follow the real-time track of all the Mini Globe Class 580 boats is via either the Yellow Brick Tracker (download ‘YB Races’ App and sign in to follow the Mini Globe 580) or the Wayward tracker App (download the Wayward App, which already displays the route he took across America while towing Skookum).

Although this reporter wanted to focus on the connections Josh and his boat have to our small dot on the globe, there are a few other interesting things worthy of knowing about regarding: The Man, The Boat and The Race.

The Man:
Prior to stepping onto his first sailboat in 2020 (a C&C 24) and teaching himself how to sail, Josh had been a serious alpine climber.

In Alaska he completed a solo (20,000 foot) summit of Denali in 2015. In Patagonia he was part of the only team that successfully got to the summit of Cerro Terre during the entire 2014 season, a season where the weather was particularly challenging. Josh and the other 3 on his team that year had to endure 5 days of 60 mph winds to be able to play the weather well enough to successfully make it to the peak of what is listed as one of the world’s 10 most difficult climbs.

Josh prides himself on “reading the weather.” So, even though he will have access to and use SailMail GRIB weather files on his round-the-world sail, he made a point of stating that he “will balance this data with looking out the window.”

Josh also grew up spending a lot of time offshore doing long line tuna fishing. He will be using a similar trolling technique to fish while underway on Skookum.

The Boat:
The boat was designed by a Polish gentleman named Janusz Maderski specifically for the Globe 5.80 one design class. It is technically 18’10” feet long with a 7’5” beam and a 4’ 7” draft. You can read all about its design and construction on the race website: classglobe580.com.

All the Mini Globe boats have this same stainless assembly for the rudder, created by McIntyre Adventure for the race.

The KIT, however, was designed and produced by B&B yachts. You can take a virtual tour of the kit by visiting https://bandbyachtdesigns.com/classglobe580. Suffice to say it is not your typical plywood stitch and glue kit though – it involves a gig, frames and planking that is screwed onto the frames before the entire thing is glassed.

Josh estimates that it has cost him about $56,000 to build. Not counting his time, which is no small exclusion.

When having the 5.8 Globe designed, Don McIntyre stressed that in spite of its small size, safety guided the process. It had to be designed to withstand rolling. Therefore, instead of a normal companionway there is a watertight hatch for entry. There is also a Ocean 70 external hatch to get through the solid watertight bulkhead that separates the forepeak from the main saloon within the boat. This hatch is meant to remain latched shut when underway.

Another safety feature is a foam filled “crash box” that fills the bottom of the bow compartment. This would add buoyancy to that front compartment if an encounter with a submerged log or container damages the bow of the boat.

Josh’s background shows with the electrical system, both in its neatness and capability.

Every Mini Globe boat is required to have a specified 4-man raft that weighs between 75-80 pounds. Prior to their departure from Antigua they must be able to demonstrate the ability to retrieve it from its stowed position and deploy it in LESS THAN 15 SECONDS.

Specific safety equipment is also required. A lot of this equipment is for communication purposes. It is mandated that every entrant communicates with their team manager at least once every 24 hours. For Josh, since Cathy is his team manager, he believes that due to this rule “he is going to be in touch with her more while at sea than he has been while building the boat” (since she ended up getting a job and moving to California while he moved into the boatyard in Seattle to finish the construction of Skookum).

All of the Globe 580s are wooden boats, but looking at Skookum, one would be hard pressed to know this. The only exterior varnish is on the tiller and the bowsprit. But it being a wooden boat became all too apparent when Josh went to buy insurance for it. The race requires you to carry a certain level of liability insurance, but getting insurance for a homemade wooden boat is not easy. He finally found Edward William Marine Insurance that was willing to cover it.

The Race:
It is officially called the McIntyre Mini Globe Race (MGR) 2025. It starts in Antigua on February 23, 2025, and is programmed to take 13 months to complete. It is definitely NOT a non-stop race.

There are 5 legs to the race. Once 25% of the fleet arrives at that leg’s destination, they set a 2-week time clock for the start of the next leg. Whoever does not arrive during that two-week time period will not be able to re-start with the rest of the fleet and is technically disqualified from the race.

Within each leg there are also a few pit-stop locations. Every boat MUST spend a combined total of at least 7 days at one or more of these pitstops (the race clock continues to run during these pit stops so anything over the 7 days cuts into your race time). These frequent breaks provide plenty of opportunities to re-provision, especially with regards to refilling water jugs. The race mandates that each boat has to be able to carry 100 liters of water, along with an additional 30 liters of either more water or a more flavorful non-alcoholic form of hydration.

There are currently 14 entrants. Eleven of them are sailing in a separate Mini Transat (transatlantic) race that will end in Antigua. Three others, including Josh, will join the rest of the fleet there to start the round-the-globe race.

One of the two female entrants, Jasmine Harrison, did not have any sailing experience at all prior to setting off on the Transat race, but she does hold the Guinness record for being the youngest woman to have rowed across the Atlantic. She also holds the record for having swam the entire length of England, from Scotland to the English Channel. So, if as Josh stated, this becomes a race of attrition, Harrison may have some impressive staying power.

The route for the race takes a bit of liberty crossing Panama. To avoid the Horn, the race transits Panama, but not by having the boats go through the canal. Instead, all the Mini Globe vessels are going to be trailered across, 2 at a time. This may prove to be a great time for participants to scrape off a few goose barnacles and re-apply some of that toxic bottom paint.

Josh Kali

The scheduled stops (and subsequent re-start dates) for the race are:

• Panama (3/24/25)
• Mystery Islant (5/16/25)
• Tahiti (6/6/25)
• Tonga (6/29/25)
• Fiji (7/25/25)
• Darwin Australia (9/125)
• Cocos (Keeling) (9/29/25)
• Mauritius (10/27/25)
• Durban, South Africa (11/29/25)
• Cape Town, South Africa (12/28/25)
• St Helena (1/24/26)
• Recife, Brazil (2/26/26)
• Antigua (where circumnavigation is completed).

Related Links

• Josh Kali Ocean Racing
• Josh & Skookum’s GoFundMe
• Mini Globe Race 2025
• Classglobe580.com
• B&B Yacht Design Class Globe 580 Kit

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Story by Jennifer Smart. Photos by Keith Smith.

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Posted Tuesday January 21, 2025 by Keith N. Smith

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