UPDATE 06/12/ 2009 We arrived in Antigua at 9pm last night (December 5th)! Thank you so much to everybody who donated (personal thanks to follow) - it's a very good cause and enormously appreciated. Full reports are available at blog.mailasail.com/sinan. This site will stay open until February so for those who were only donating 'on completion' - now's your chance!
Best wishes - the crew of Sinan, Tim, Kit, Rhidian and Colin
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page.
We are sailing the Atlantic in November - and hope to raise £2,500 for Asthma UK.
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - we raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
So please dig deep and donate now.
We leave from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands on November 14th and should arrive in Antigua in the Caribbean - roughly 2860 nautical miles away - in early December. You can follow our progress at blog.mailasail.com/sinan - we will be uploading news and pictures here each day.
There are four of us making the journey - for the first time: Tim Kelsey (skipper), Colin Lloyd, Rhidian Wynn Davies and Kit Kelsey, who is 16 and the youngest of the team. Kit suffers from Asthma and we decided that we should use the opportunity to raise money for the vital work of Asthma UK in supporting patients. Over the last two years we have sailed from Torquay across the Bay of Biscay and down the coast of northern Spain and Portugal to the Canaries - in preparation for the Atlantic.
We are sailing aboard Sinan, a 43 foot Jeanneau Sun Odyssey Deck Saloon. Sinan is four years old. Sinan, by contrast, died 419 years ago. He was the Christian court architect to Suleyman the Magnificent, arguably the greatest Ottoman Sultan. Sinan orchestrated the building of some of the most beautiful buildings in the world including the great Suleiman mosque in Istanbul. He also built ships.
Thank you again for taking the time to visit this page - we hope you'll be as generous as you can.
