This is a great opportunity for those
cruisers intending to cross the Atlantic next season - a wonderful "race".
PRESS RELEASE
GOVERNOR’S CUP 2008 – AN AFFORDABLE YACHT RACE WITH A DIFFERENCE
The False Bay Yacht Club Organising Committee of the Governor’s Cup 2008 yacht race from Cape Town to Jamestown, capital of the island of St Helena, has decided not to charge an entry fee for the event. This has been made possible by extremely generous sponsorship from the Directors of Southern Africa Master Distributors (Pty) Ltd. Are there any other events of this nature that make participation so ridiculously affordable?
The race starts on 29 December 2008 and competitors sail an exciting, yet comfortable, downwind course through the warm trade winds, with deep blue seas and swooping albatrosses keeping them company. Competitors then join their supporters on the Island, who have sailed to St Helena aboard the sole surviving Royal Mailship, the RMS St Helena. After ten days of fun filled life on this tropical paradise, the group returns, with their yachts aboard, to Cape Town, via Walvis Bay, on the luxurious Mailship, enjoying its traditional charm, food and entertainment.
Apart from those returning to Cape Town, this race offers
cruising yachtsmen the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of the event. They can elect to participate in the racing or cruising. The cruising fleet sails a more relaxed race, being allowed to use their engines for a limited time to avoid frustrating calms. Apart from the free entry, they can take advantage of free or subsidised moorings at False Bay Yacht Club, event ware and memorabilia, pre-race functions and excursions, the fabulous farewell from the famous V&A Waterfront after a free week on V&A marinas, free entry onto St Helena, with no mooring or landing fees, and the Island hospitality with many well planned functions, hikes and sporting events, culminating in the traditional Governor’s Reception and Prize Giving.
After making many friends prior to the event, sailing in company with other yachts and enjoying the Island’s offerings, the cruisers sail off to other adventures, with the Governor’s Cup 2008 living in their memories for years to come.
Here is what a previous Governor’s Cup entrant has to say:
“
Have you been planning for years to go cruising?
Have you been preparing your boat for the last umpteen years and, but for a few small (but important) jobs, is it nearly ready to go?
Have you handed over your firm to younger people who, with just a little more coaching, will be able to take over and let you retire at last?
Could you go, if it weren't that your (thirty something year old) child still needs Grandma to baby-sit the kids?
What you need is a fixed goal to precipitate action! What you need is to put your name down for an event that'll give you plenty of time to square everything up but, once you've boasted to all your friends that you're going to do it, you'll not be able to back out of!
Why don't you enter this year's Governor's Cup race to St. Helena? It doesn't start till the end of the year, and that'll give you AMPLE time to get those last few jobs done; to finally get young what's-his-name up to speed; to persuade your wife that the daughter-in-law is capable of bringing up her grand children without ruining them completely! It's really a "not-to-be-missed" opportunity! At a juncture in life when there's no avoiding feeling you have a financial hemorrhage - they've got a wonderful sponsor who seems to be paying for nearly everything! Also it'll be two years before the next race, and leaving in a well organised event, with everything all laid on ensures you leave ON the date you've said - to break those iron bonds with the home that's been your symbol of security for all these years; to break off and let the firm get on without your interference; to let the kids realise just how much they take their Grandma's love and service for granted!
The adrenalin rush of that massed start! The beating out into the vast south Atlantic with land dropping below the horizon for the first time! The secure knowledge that there are others out there, close at hand, who'll help if something you overlooked breaks! The vast satisfaction of your first ocean landfall and then the happy partying and days swinging properly to an anchor for the first time, with good friends about to share the novelty with!
The sad farewells as the mail-ship, with your friends and their boats aboard, ups anchor to return to Cape Town and then the tight throated weighing of your own anchor and the sight of the island dropping below the horizon – you're alone on the vast ocean at last! But the south Atlantic, in the southeast trades, turns out to be all you've dreamed of! Fluffy balls of cloud overhead, a steady, good breeze, long, easy swells and not a ship to be seen!
Go on! Put your name down and precipitate the dream that's been only a dream for FAR too long!
Please visit the race website:
http://www.thegovernorscup.co.za or through
http://www.fbyc.co.za
Linear Mode
