Ready for Sailing at Skandia Cowes Week

It’s been very busy here since the Artemis Transat, but things are moving forwards. We noticed this morning that on the skipper page of the Vendee Globe website we had been moved from the “Pre-registered skippers” side to the “Registered skippers” side and our race entry number is 25, so that‘s it, we‘re officially in! It’s quite a milestone for us after ten years of work. We’ve been smiling all day!

We have been really busy making phone calls, sending emails, and generally working towards tracking down that elusive title sponsor. We haven’t got one for the Vendee Globe race yet, but we are very optimistic, even more so after The Artemis Transat and all of the media coverage that generated for us , and we are certain that something is just around the corner; we’ll let you know how it goes, meanwhile any ideas would be gratefully received!

I took the boat over to Cherbourg at the end of last week, and met up with Josh Hall who gave me a hand to give the rig a bit of a going over, and get a couple of other jobs done with the boat alongside rather than on a mooring. I have been getting done all the jobs that needed doing after I got back from the Artemis Transat. The list is getting smaller!

We have Scandia Cowes Week coming up shortly. I will be doing corporate hospitality days for most of the week, but on Tuesday the 5th of August we have the Artemis Challenge race for Open 60’s around the Isle of Wight. Last year we had an excellent time, so we wanted to enter again this year. The winning boat receives £10,000 prize money for a charity of their choice, which is the RNLI in our case, so fingers crossed for that.

Onboard this year, we have Johnny Ball, the children‘s TV presenter, who enjoyed last year so much he wanted to come again, and Simon Thomas, who used to present Blue Peter, but has moved on to Sky TV. Then we have Simon Kearsley of bluQube, Dave Murdock from the Dorset Echo, Paul from the RNLI, and various friends who Kim has invited along to help her celebrate her birthday, which falls on that day too.

We will have a competition winner on board too. The winner of Weymouth Lifeboat Week prize draw – I hope they are going to enjoy the day!

Simon Kearsley is supplying the ‘team shirts’ for the day, and thank’s to Buff, the crew will each receive a goody bag, and their own Buff!

We’ll make sure we take loads of pictures – and let you know how the day goes!

Bye for now.

Vendee Globe 2008 Skippers roster

Vendee Globe 2008 Pre-registered Skippers

• Jonny Malbon
  ARTEMIS
  
• Vincent Riou
  PRB
  
• Norbert Sedlacek
  Nauticsport-Kapsch
  
• Marc Thiercelin
  DCNS
  
• Brian Thompson
  Pindar
  

Vendee Globe 2008 Registered Skippers

Vendee Globe 2008 Registered Skippers
1 - Roland Jourdain Veolia Environnement	2 - Jérémie Beyou Delta Dore
3 - Jean-Pierre Dick Paprec-Virbac	4 - Jean Le Cam VM Matériaux
5 - Samantha Davies Roxy	6 - Yann Elies Generali
7 - Kito de Pavant Bel	8 - Arnaud Boissières Akena Verandas
9 - Marc Guillemot Safran	10 - Michel Desjoyeaux Foncia
11 - Loïck Peyron Gitana	12 - Rich Wilson NC
13 - Bernard Stamm Cheminées Poujoulat	14 - Dominique Wavre Temenos
15 - Derek Hatfield Spirit Of Canada	16 - Mike Golding Ecover
17 - Jean Baptiste Dejeanty Maisonneuve	18 - Yannick Bestaven Cervin
19 - Raphaël Dinelli Fondation Océan Vital	20 - Unai Basurko Pakea Bizkaia
21 - Armel Le Cléac’h Brit Air	22 - Alex Thomson Hugo Boss
23 - Sébastien Josse BT	24 - Dee Caffari Aviva
25 - Steve White NC