clean report
brittany speared
Just got the word from our sponsor, and Mer and I are off to Brittany on Wednesday for the start of the Velux 5 Oceans race!
This is a trip I’ve wanted to take for a long, long time – my first ever sail was as a 10 year old out of Courseulles in Normandy, where I spent a few years as a kid. Fast forward twenty years, and I’m the senior editor of the world’s most viewed sailing website, yet in my five years on the SA staff, I’ve never gotten to cover a SINGLE event in the nation that turned offshore sailing into a national passion!
So the stars lined up just right, and we’re off to cover the start of the Velux5Oceans race, both to figure out why they’ve had so much trouble getting a fleet bigger than 6 boats in the past two editions, and to set the stage for what we expect to be a somewhat groundbreaking media effort that will transport us into the cockpits of an Open 60 as it tears across the ocean.
Then we’re on to St. Malo for a race that I’ve been wanting to see for a decade, for its sheer coolness as much as for the unprecedented turnout of the public wishing the fleet off. It only happens once every four years, and with the G-Cats competing this year, it should be truly spectacular!
We are planning to do as much as we possibly can to get you into the thick of both scenes – video interviews and boat tours, live talk shows, test sails on some of the fastest vessels on the planet, hot, free photos of the entire circus, and editorial pieces with the info that we dig up. We’re also going to do our damnedest to stream both starts live, and in both French and English (though my French is a bit rusty, I’m sure it’ll brush up quickly).
So if you’re going to be there, or you live there, or your company wants to be involved as a sponsor of our coverage, give us a shout or post here and let us know. Vive Les Marins!
