The necessary evil - every (well....most) racers nightmare - time eater "par excelance" if you have to take care of it yourself while trying to build a boat. But.....
I will not be able to take part in this race if I don't find other sources of "back-up" other than my own.
So far every cent invested in the construction of the boat has been from our own savings for two basic reasons:
1 - I believe in this project and therefore feel obliged to "do my part" of sponsoring
2 - I have not found a major sponsor yet who has enough sense of adventure to couple his/her company's name to "Skippy".
It's rather obvious what's in it for me, I could concentrate on the "race" and not constantly worrying if the next harbour will be the last one cause I've ran out of funds to continue racing, but the question is what is there to gain for the sponsor ?
Unfortunately I have no crystal bowl and cannot predict the attention this race will receive from the international press. If we should purely look at the event itself, sailing around the world in a ten feet boat, there will be hardly any other event organised that can speak to the mind like the Around in Ten.
This is not a race where a whole team of experts is guiding the sportsmen to his victory, this is a race about one man and his boat. The sailor will be depending on himself and nobody else. Every repair at sea, every meal prepared, every mile navigated, everything must be done by the skipper as there is nobody else to rely to.
The amount of money needed to complete this race is, to my standards huge.
If for one or another reason (not enough funds raised or medical reasons) I cannot start, the remaining money will be donated to "children's charity" somewhere in the world, preferably a small organisation that will not spend the money on bureaucrats but on actual aid for the children.
We will put up a list with every donation made so everybody can see how much money is raised.
There will be “certificate’s” offered that have a drawing of the boat “Skippy” and in stylish text words of appreciation and thanks, the date the certificate was bought, a serial number and the name of the donator.
These certificates will be sent by regular mail so be sure to give the correct mailing address.
Example certificate
Four categories of donation are available and each represents the number of miles that is sponsored by the donation.
“The Citizens Certificate” rated 10 Euro sponsoring 5 nautical miles
“The Bronze Certificate” rated 20 Euro sponsoring 10 nautical miles
“The Silver Certificate” rated 50 Euro sponsoring 25 nautical miles
“The Gold Certificate” rated 1000 Euro sponsoring 500 nautical miles
Cash money is but one segment and I understand that people are not eager to hand over their hard earned money to a total stranger, regardless the sympathy they feel for the project. I like to point out though that a great deal of the sponsor money will be used to buy equipment and material and in that regard I’m likely pleased if people would donate “things” instead of money like navigation tools (sextant-charts-compass etc…) books (Dutch-English-German) or other material that might be considered useful for this project.
Likewise the “donor” of these goods will be mentioned just like anyone else that makes a contribution.
