The new sailing online community

Please check out www.yachtbook.net. It's an online community in the starting blocks. All comments, tips and constructive critisism will be highly appreciated.

Perfect start for GOC

Global Ocean Challenge, the brain child of Josh Hall and Brian Hancock, has secured the Portuguese town of Portimão as their main sponsor. This is great news for two reasons:
1. The only Corinthian round the world race is one giant step closer to becoming a reality and giving a number of sailors and adventurers the possibility to fulfil their dreams.
2. Portimão is on the south tip of Portugal and the sailors will avoid the Bay of Biscay in this race. Even if all the French regattas seems to insist to send their sailors out in the treacherous waters in the fall/winter, there is no need to follow that tradition.

VOR podcast

This is genius. I have just downloaded the first VOR podcast and I enjoyed every minute of it. Off course it's biased towards VOR content, but it also gives the listeners insight in to themes as Americas Cup and and Velux 5 Oceans.

Best of all: You can download the program to your iPod and listen to it whenever you like. I'm already looking forward to the next episode. Good move, VOR.

Listen to it here.

The Velux 1 Winner

Is the Velux 5 Oceans really a race?

According to the latest press release Bernard Stamm is claiming too sail his boat conervatively at 17 knots to conserve his boat. Anything else would be just stupid as he is 465 nautical miles in front of the next boat.

With 17 knots he is sailing 5 + knots faster than the rest of the fleet, and, according to him self, he could be doing 25 knots if he had to.

That's 13 knots faster than the rest of the fleet. Isn't anyone pushing hard in this race?

This is the kind off quotes we want:

Till Pohlmann, Head of Sports Sponsorship, Hugo Boss AG:
“Sailing is a growing market in the business of sports sponsorship. As a title sponsor of international ocean racing, we at Hugo Boss have a unique skipper in Alex Thomson, with whom we are able to achieve fantastic global press coverage, both print and broadcast. Being a lifestyle brand we activate this sponsorship in every single one of our key markets - at present in more than 100 countries - by inviting guests to enjoy a great sailing experience aboard our boat. We have also been able to tie our sailing sponsorship in with other existing long-term relationships we hold. For example, David Coulthard christened our last boat, Wladimir Klitschko (Heavy Weight Boxing World Champion) has been sailing with Alex in Kiel, and we had the boat in Monaco last year during the F1 race.”

"Fashion is made in metropolitan areas and Barcelona is a great city in one of our biggest markets worldwide. We are therefore really looking forward to the start of the Barcelona World Race in Barcelona this autumn.”

Looking for a dream job?

OC Events, part of the OC Group owned by Dame Ellen MacArthur and Mark Turner, are looking to expand its events team in charge of a number of high profile projects including the inaugural double-handed Barcelona World Race and the new Extreme 40 European grand prix circuit. Primarily looking to fill two positions Account Director and Operations Director for the above two named events. The role could include overseeing the management and coordination of the events from a commercial, sporting and logistical perspective.

Candidates must be of senior manager to director level, have extensive experience in event sport management, realising commercial rights packages, sponsorship and marketing. A knowledge of the professional sailing world and languages, such as, French, Spanish and German, would be beneficial. Ultimately, the successful candidate(s) must have the right business experience, drive and commitment to make things happen. They will be joining a highly motivated and committed team of individuals at the OC Group who are proud to deliver some of the world's best sailing sponsorship projects.
Candidates will primarily be based in Cowes, Isle of Wight (UK) but extensive travel is also required. Full salary package available on successful application. Please send your CV and letter of motivation to susie.walker@ocgroup.com

Bubbs new move

Nick Bubb has just set up Class 40 Racing after arriving home from his record delivery (32.4 knots on a Class 40) from the Azores. It's an interesting new site for everyone that’s interested in Class 40. Here you can find boats for sale, basic information about the different boats and Bubb is also offering training weekends for the keen sailors.

This service is just what the fast expanding class needs. Just have a look at the forum page on the new website…