Displaying items by tag: Emergency Appeal

4th July 2019

UK Based Jubilee Sailing Trust Fights for Survival

UK sailing charity JST based in Southampton which operate specialist trainee tallships, urgently needs to raise £1m by tomorrow (Friday, 5th July) otherwise face a bleak future. AFLOAT adds on the left is the Tenacious and fleetmate Lord Nelson a recent visitor to Cork Harbour during SeaFest where Irish people have been able to participate through Sail Training Ireland.

In the UK a Southampton based sailing charity has launched an emergency campaign to raise £1m by tomorrow (Friday 5th July) or face a bleak future.

The trustees of Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST) according to the Southern Daily Echo, has launched the rescue effort to address "serious financial challenges" and to continue operating.

If unable to reach the £1m target by the end of the week it will "cease to exist immediately", unless another solution is found.

Based in Woolston, the JST has been struggling financially for the past year following a number of mechanical problems on both of its ships.

Similarly, a poor uptake for its winter 2018 programme has had negative financial impacts.

Founded in 1978, the JST owns the Tenacious and Lord Nelson which are two specially adapted traditionally-rigged sailing ships.

They are the only ships in the world designed to be sailed by a crew with a variety of physical impairments and health conditions.

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Published in Tall Ships

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Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.