2003

Ocean Planet Adventures
Friday, August 12, 2003

Hi Ocean Sailing fans,

So sorry to be slow on the updates, but trust me, I haven’t been lazy! I’ve done some fun talk/slide shows about the Ocean Planet Around Alone adventure, but have been especially busy laying the groundwork for my entry in Vendee Globe (more below).

On July 26th, the wonderful delta sailing crowd at the Stockton Sailing Club hosted my show at a fundraising dinner for Ocean Planet. Their enthusiasm and interest was immeasurable and made me feel really welcome. The venue was fun and unique at their club, outdoors with the occasional big freighter ghosting right next to the club in the impossibly narrow shipping channel! We had a great dinner, sold a bunch of team T-shirts, and no one seemed to mind that my slide and talk went on late into the warm evening.

Coming shows:
Two more shows coming up in September: the Seattle Boats Afloat show on Sept 11, and also an extra-special fundraising show, dinner, and professional ballroom dance exhibition being put together by none other than my dynamo Mom, Anitia Jimenez. This special show will be on Sept 12 and will feature terrific dance performances by Seattle’s top professional instructors. Mark these date off on your calendar and stay tuned for more details!

This coming weekend (August 16/17), Ocean Planet and I will be attending the MS (Multiple Sclerosis) fundraising regatta in Portland, Maine (not Oregon!). On Sunday come on down to Portland Yacht Service where the boat will be open for viewing and I’ll be there to answer questions and give you a tour. Hope to see you there.

For the Vendee Globe:
We will soon be officially announcing my entry in the 2004/2005 Vendee Globe with a special press release. For the past couple months I’ve been working hard to with a team of partners to build a media coverage platform to provide the maximum benefit for sponsors. In the meantime, here is a quick overview of what we are putting together. Please contact me with any questions!

Basically, our program will have three areas of special focus in addition to the regular coverage of the race:

) Worldwide radio coverage before and during the race on the internationally syndicated radio show Sport Byline (www.sportsbyline.com). I did a recent interview with host Ron Barr, and we really hit it off. It’s a great show and I look forward to working with them to bring the Vendee race LIVE to their huge audience.
) A US public television documentary produced by PBS affiliate KCSM (www.kcsm.org). This looks to be a pretty big project by them, and would cover our whole story leading up to and racing the Vendee! It would show sometime after the race.
) An Educational program with the help of the experienced team at www.reachtheworld.org.

What all this means is that we can now offer guaranteed coverage which is available to be branded and/or underwritten by a sponsor. It will be a few weeks before we have a complete presentation, but contact me right away if you think of anyone that should see it.

Bruce
Skipper, Ocean Planet