It has been a long time since I wrote an update on our prigress with the Bermuda Ocean Race and it is high time that I start getting these updates going.

We left Kingston around 0300 yesterday morning and had a very uneventful trip. Greg, Perri, and Chirs (Greg’s dad) had a nice drive with no drama at all. The trailer and boat were well behaved on the highway and truck was perfect for the job.

Once we got to Annapolis we launched the boat at the Eastport Yacht Centre and then brought her around the penisula to the Eastport Yacht Club. We accomplished our goal of getting the mast up, solar panels on and generally getting things ready. Today we hope to get things cleaned up below and then go for a sail to make sure that things are set up correctly.

We’ll have the pre-race check-in tonight, and then hopefully a good nights sleep before we head off tomorrow afternoon.

Perri has been snapping pics along the way. I’ll try and get some up on flickr latter tonight.

For those of you that are wishing to follow the race, here is the link to the BOR iBoat tracking page. (Nothing is happening there yet…) The race site its self is www.bermudaoceanrace.com.

Here are the photos from Geoff Webster. Awesome as always!

This past Tuesday the sailng team re-christened the mighty 680 as “Boys and Girls Club of Canada”.

As many of you will know I have been working with a group of kids at the club over the past few months, and over that time I have really come to appreciate the good work that the club does for the community.

Earlier this month I had the idea to rename the boat for the kids at the club. Our hope is to help raise awareness and hopefully funds for their work in the community. Harold Parsons is the Executive Director of the Kingston B&GC and he suggested that the national office might be interested in taking on this project at the national level. After a flurry of emails, we finalized the deal.

We had a great launch event with lots of family, friends, as well as some of the kids from the club. Ben was good enough to make the offering to King Neptune, and I think we has an auspicious start to the season.

Sorry to update you with a press release…. More tomorrow.

The Minimus Sailing Team and Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, are proud to announce the christening and naming of world class sailor Nathan Baron’s Open 6.5, on Tuesday May 13th at 4:00pm at Collin’s Bay Marina.

The Minimus Sailing Team has chosen to help promote the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada by naming the boat after this important national child and youth serving organization. Skipper Nathan Baron remarks “This sailing project has been supported by the Kingston community, and we are very proud to be able to give something back to the community. The Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada does so much to support children and we are very excited to help promote the Clubs and their important programs both locally at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Kingston and at Clubs across the country.”

“We are delighted to be a part of this exciting initiative,” said Pam Jolliffe, President and CEO, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring much-needed visibility to the positive impact that Clubs have on the lives of 200,000 young people in Canada annually and to generate new support for Club programs in the Kingston community and across the country.”

This summer the team will be sailing from Annapolis Maryland USA, racing in the Bermuda Ocean Race (BOR), a double handed (two-crew) race from Annapolis to Bermuda. This unique race is a mix of coastal navigation as well as testing offshore skills of top skippers on the North American East coast. Crew Greg van Rossem commented: “The BOR is a very tough race on its own, but as an element of Nathan’s training for the 2009 Mini Transat, this will be a very important event.”

The launch comes after a winter re-fit on the boat, making various improvements and refinements to the extreme yacht called an Open 6.5 or Mini. Boat Services Kingston have donated their time and expertise to help the Minimus Sailing Team get the boat into top shape for this season’s racing.

The christening of the boat will be open to the public at Collin’s Bay Marina at 4:00pm Tuesday May 13th. Children from the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Kingston will be on hand to help christen the boat. Please come down to support the sailing team as well as the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada.

About Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada
Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada is a leading provider of programs to children and youth that support the healthy physical, educational and social development of 200,000 young people and their families each year. In 700 community locations across Canada, Clubs offer after-school programs in physical recreation, technology, the arts, personal growth and more. Many Clubs also provide meals, emergency shelter, family support programs and other supports to children, youth and families at risk. Boys and Girls Clubs have been helping young Canadians to discover, develop and achieve their potential, for over 100 years. To learn more, visit www.bgccan.com.

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Good news from the Spirit of Canada camp. Here’s the release, via BYM news.:

Vendee Globe: Derek Hatfield Spirit of Canada qualifies for round the world race
Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Canadian single-handed sailor Derek Hatfield is officially qualified to enter the Vendee Globe 2008 - a singlehanded non-stop race around the world.

Just before Christmas, Hatfield completed the Transat Ecover B2B, the single-handed transatlantic race from Brazil to France that is a qualifier for the Vendee Globe. It was also a great chance to shake down his racing machine, the Canadian-built Open 60, Spirit of Canada. Then just last week, all the documentation and official medical training was completed and filed with the Vendee Globe organizers and the official race number; #15 was issued by the organizers.

“I am very proud to finally finish the qualifications for the Vendee Globe 2008. It has been a lot of hard work getting this far but with the support that we receive from so many Canadians, we will be on the start line this November.” said Hatfield. On November 8, 2008, Hatfield, 56, will be the only Canadian in the race competing. He and the Spirit of Canada will be the first Canadian team to attempt the race.

Read the rest of this entry »

So this week at the Boys and Girls Club Session I announced that the group are going to be following the Artemis Transat, and I promised the kids that I would post all of the information and links that we looked at last night.

For those of you who are not lucky enough to be part of the LIT group, tonnes of good video an d links here.

The Artemis Transat

The Artemis Transat main website is here. The video that we watched is here. For those of you who don’t know about the race, it is sailed in Open 60s and Class 40s, singlehanded, from Plymouth England to Boston USA.

Follow a Skipper:

Here are the links to the videos of some of the skippers that we looked at. When you are trying to decide which team you are going to be rooting for, think about the different experiences and hardships that they have had to overcome and also look at their race record. Who do you think is going to be at the top of the fleet? If you want to follow a skipper that is not in this list below, go right ahead! Here is a list of all of the teams.

Dee Cafari Aviva Ocean Racing. Here is the video we watched.

Vincint Riou Here is the PRB website. (This one is in French). Here is the helicopter video that we watched.

Johnny Malbon Here is the Artemis Ocean Racing website. Here is the video that we watched.

Samantha Davies Here is the Roxy Sailing Website. Here is the video we watched.

Mike Golding Here is Mike Golding’s website.. Here is that crazy time lapse video that we watched.

Following the race:

When we get closer to the race, we will be able to go the Artemis Transat website and watch the skippers as the race across the Atlantic towards Boston. As soon as the race tracker is up, I will let you guys know.

After the start you should try to visit the tracker once a day to see how your boat is doing.You can also try “googling” them to see what news you can find on news websites. ONce we are into the race, I will show you how to check the weather that the boats are sailing in.

Have fun with it guys, and I will see you on Tuesday at the club before we go to Kingston Sail Loft.

So Greg and I spent much of Saturday exercising our shoulders while sanding the bottom of 680. Messy work.

Ross jokingly asked “Heh Niilo, I think I’m done. How many hours do I have left to go?” Funny thing is that I’m headed back for another round of sanding tonight.

This Wednesday the LIT group are going to selling smoothies to help raise some money for the Mini campaign. We will be hanging out in the front hall of the Boys and Girls Club selling strawberry and banana smoothies from 3:00pm to 5:00pm.

Members of the public are welcome to drop by for a quick beverage and see what’s happening at the club and chat about sailing with some really cool kids.

Here’s a map to the club. Hope to see you there!

View Larger Map

I’ve been doing a lot of studying on coastal navigation lately, so I have been paying attention to the recent inquiry around the tragic sinking of the Queen of the North.

The Marine Services guys at MTO are paying attention to this stuff too, and a friend of mine just emailed me a link link to the media files on the inquest. This simulation video (windows media file) is especially interesting. Make sure you have the volume up on your computer so you can hear the radio transmissions.

I find it absolutely amazing that on a ship with chart plotters, radar and a whole bridge staff, that this kind of thing can happen.

I’ve been spending most weekends out at Boat Service Kingston’s shop and it is nice to finally see some progress!

More photos in the my Flickr stream.