Mark Cole's Round The World Challenge
Local man Mark Cole has signed up for the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race and will be taking part in this years race which starts in Hull on September 13th 2009.
Mark has chosen to raise money for The Children's Foundation and is hoping to raise £5,000.
Mark spent 10 years in the merchant navy going away to sea as a second navigating officer with BP. He became bored of the usual humdrum nature of the day to day job and wanted to recapture his enthusiasm for a life at sea. When he first went to sea, he imagined life on the ocean waves to be exciting, but he found it to be quite different to his dream. He enquired about taking part in the Clipper Round the World Yacht race and saw it as the perfect opportunity to use his experience at navigating and meteorology but this time with a yacht, facing a far greater challenge, relying on the elements rather than the engineers.
Mark has completed 3 weeks worth of training so far, where he has learnt the basics. He has found it a rewarding experience as some of his team mates have little or no knowledge of the sea. mark will be in team C5 which is yet to be named and will be competing alongside his fellow teammates which include a florist, a surgeon and a bookkeeper!
There are 10 Round the World sailors on each boat, and Mark is one of them. Other crew are joining at different stages. You can have up to 18 - 20 crew on board at any time, and Marks team totals 46. There are 11 different nationalities on the team.
The yachts have a full gallery arrangement including a stove, oven and facilities to make bread. There is no refrigeration so they will be living off tinned and dried food. They also have a water maker on board but they won't be showering! Mark is hoping to be able to jump in the ocean around the equator instead. The work load will be immense and the team mates will need to 'hotbunk' meaning one person works while the other sleeps.
Marks biggest fears are the hours of work - 4 hours on, 4 hours off - and of course the weather - he is expecting some big waves and it will be very cold and windy. For Mark, this is a challenge to see how far he can push himself against the elements. His team is one of the favourites as they have a very experienced skipper; Eero Lehtinen, 45 from Helsinki, Finland. 'I'm very excited and proud to have been appointed skipper,' he says, 'Sailing the world's oceans has been a lifelong passion and leading a novice crew will give me an extra exciting challenge on top of this.'
Eero, who has been working with Clipper Training at the race's UK headquarters for several months, preparing the crews for the 35,000-mile challenge ahead, has an excellent ocean racing pedigree. He was a crew member in the 1989 Whitbread Race and skippered one of the entries in the 2004/2005 Global Challenge event. He has crossed the atlantic nine times and was the helmsman on the winning yacht in the Six Metre World Championships in 2003.
Mark's team have already won a couple of the practice sessions, so they are favourites heading into the competition.
For more information on Mark's amazing challenge go to www.markroundtheworld.com and to sponsor him, please click here.
