Yes Sailing Anarchy can be a rough and tumble forum, with some people who will jump down your throat without much provocation, and some people tend to shy away from the site this reason.

But every once in a while a jem pops up…

Bruce Schwab, aka haji, is an Open 60 skipper and very famous american sailor who drops into SA every once in a while. Bruce dropped this Josh Hall story into the thread. Really great story.

Any Sharkies reading this may be interested to know that the 2007 North American Championships NOR has been posted you can find it here (direct link to PDF).

I’m happy to let everyone know that Brandon Tattersall will be working with the MST over the next six weeks.

Brandon is a marketing student at St. Lawrence College and will be spending some of his CO-OP placement working on the marketing for the team.   Brandon has been a keen sailor for years, sailing on top teams out of KYC.  This knowledge combined with his marketing training will be a huge assett to the team.

Happy Monday Yall!  (Just to keep things in perspective it could be way worse…)

I am very pleased to announce that world famous sailor and author, Brian Hancock will be coming to the Kingston Yacht Club to give a talk on his experience sailing offshore in numerous high profile and very extreme sailing events.  This multimedia presentation will be a fundraising event for the Minimus Sailing Team and my campaign for the Mini Transat.

Brian is a veteran of three Whitbread round the world races, has participated in many high profile campaigns including record attempts on maxi catamarans and campaigned an Open 50 for the 2001 Around Alone race.  So Brian is no stranger to single handed sailing.

 Brian Hancock aboard his Open 50

Brian is also one of the co-founders of the Global Ocean Challenge, a single and short handed race around the world race.  The race will be sailed in Open 40 and 50s. 

Brian has graciously offered to help the Minimus Sailing Team raise funds for the 2009 Mini Transat Campaign.  Brian will be donating some books and such for door prizes and raffles, so you will not only get a chance to hear a great sailor talk  about his experiences, but also get a chance to walk away with some great reading.

The event will be held on April 3 at 1900, at the Kingston Yacht Club in the Partridge room.  Tickets will be $10 at the door.  Donation towards the Mini Transat campaign will be greatly appreciated.  More event details can be found on the KYC site.

Well if there was ever any doubt that the Mini is a popular main stream class all you have to do is take a look at the entry list information that was publiched recently.  Competitors apply for each race and then have to rank which races they would prefer to sail. 

Here are a few of the numbers:

Mini-Pavois : 90 files received on D Day for 60 places
Pornichet Sélect 6,50 : 112 files received on D Day for 70 places
Demi-Clé : 84 files received on D Day for 60 places
Trophée Marie-Agnès Péron : 109 files received on D Day for 80 places
Mini-Fastnet : 144 files received on D Day for 100 places
Open Sail Simrad B&G : 97 files received on D Day for 70 places
Transgascogne : 148 files received on D Day for 75 places

Source Classe Mini

Almost all of the races are over subscribed as the number of miles required to get into the MT are rising quickly.  For the 2007 edition of the race to make the top 72 took 3100nm compared to 1300nm for the last race.  Obviously it requires a huge commitment to get these miles in. 

One of the cool things about sailing is that there is no shortage of role models.  Over the past few months I have been reading everything I can get my hands on about trans-Atlantic crossings, the great single handed sailors, and various technical texts.  One of my favorite things is to go in to Barry and Peterson here in Kingston and peruse the nautical section there.  There are many role models in those shelves.

 

 

Since I began this campaign I have been consulting people and asking many questions.  Questions about bluewater sailing, questions about single-handed sailing, questions about fundraising, questions about business proposals, and on and on and on.  While it would be easy to assume that you should be good at all these things going into a campaign like this, the reality is that I am simply looking to learn about all the stuff I need to know, before I need to know it.

This is where the importance of role models comes in.  Right now the focus is on raising money, so I am looking to people who know about that.  Marketing and communications in the sailing business are a very niche area, and I am so glad to have people on my team who have done this and been successful.  It helps to know that these people believe in the project, and me, when I am up at 0300 and worrying about the next pitch.  This positive energy that comes from these role models helps to keep me going. 

 

 

My point is that role models come from all over.  They could come from books like Bernard Moitessier’s The Long Way, they could from your local yacht club, or they could be one of the famous sailors that we all read about in Sailing World like Ellen McArthur.  It doesn’t really matter where we draw strength and experience from; the important part is that we are open enough to learn and ask questions of the people who may know the answers. 

 

I’ve spent most of the weekend going over spreadsheets and stuff for the campaign and various proposals. When things are all business like this, one of the things I do to remind myself what this is all about is to visit Leo’s video thread. He’ got links to tonnes of good stuff.

For those of you who are still trying to get your head around what life is like offshore in these powerful little machines, you should check out Greg Magne’s youtube stream. He’s used video clips for his log to the classe mini for his qualification sail. This one is particularly telling…

It’s pretty cool to see your name in the local media.  A big part of this launch was to hlep with the public awareness in the Kingston area and I think we are on the right track.  Lindsey Fair has done an amazing job of getting the media on board with this project. 

We got three mentions on the local TV station and a couple of mentions on the radio which is good.  I’m going to pick up a copy of the piece on CKWS TV in the next couple of days.  I’ll upload it to youtube if the licence agreement allows.  (It probobly won’t.)

I have to admit that it’s a little weird having everyone know what’s going on in my life.  I’m still trying to find the proper response when people say, “Heh, I saw you on the news last night.  What a cool project!”  I’m generally leading folks to the MST website and the sponsorship page.  (You can download the CYA form for tax deductable donations on that page.)  It is also nice to have some money trickling in.  As nice as it is to be a “celebrity” and all, it really is about raising funds to get sailing. 

Hope everyone in Ontario is safe and sound out of the crazy weather.  It’s nasty out there.

Well last night I finally unveiled my plans to compete in the 2009 Mini Transat, and I thought that I should finally break the silence here.

I’ve been hesitant to start blogging about my plans as everything was coming together, there were so many things that I was unsure of or wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about. Now my plans are pretty laid down and I just need to execute the plan. And I want to talk about it.

For those of you who missed it, I hope to compete in the 2009 Mini Transat, a single-handed race across the Atlantic. If you would like to learn a little more about the race, check out my website.

Last night I gave a “press conference” at the club and did a talk on the race. You can get the slides here. (WARNING: big file, please download once as I’m a poor sailor.) (Edit: If you would like a copy of the slides, please drop me an email and I will send them to you.) I was going to record audio, but I forgot hit the record button. (It’s bloody nerve wracking having TV cameras in your face!)
So now it is time to get out there and start talking to people. Lindsey has had a tonne of ideas and it’s now a matter of making the calls and setting up the appointments. I’m excited to get out there and tell people about the race.

I’ll be writing more often and I hope that you will come back and read about what’s happening. I think this is going to be a pretty good ride, and I’m really looking forward to sharing it with you.