I am taking part in the Fastnet Race for HOPE AGAINST CANCER. Please support me!

Hope Against Cancer is a Leicestershire and Rutland wide cancer charity working to find a cure and supporting patients and families across Leicester/leicestershire and Rutland in their fight against cancer.

I work as a cancer specialist treating lymphoma and leukaemia. Some treatments are fantastic and things have changed beyond recognition since I started in medicine not so many (!) years ago. But there is still a major challenge. I want to cure more people. Hope Against Cancer is an important regional charity. They are making a real difference supporting scientifically important research at the Leicester Universities. For example one of my colleagues in haematology, Dr Renata Walewska, is doing a PhD with the support of this charity.

Hope Against Cancer needs your support to continue funding projects like Renata's.

For my part this is all a bit daunting! I am going to take part in a world famous (famous sometimes for the wrong reasons - see 1979) offshore yacht race in a seriously fast race boat with a very determined and succesful skipper (Philippe Falle) at the helm. I dont think there is even a stop for Guinness en route.

PUMA LOGIC is absolutely going like a rocket.  We had our first Fastnet team race in one of the RORC offshore races last weekend. The starting gun for IRC Class 1 went off soon after 08:30 on Saturday morning, it was a spinnaker run out of the Solent and we were off to the Eddystone Light. The race was characterised by light and variable winds until the Squalls at the end meaning seemingly endless headsail changes to catch what breeze we could. It paid off because when we rounded the Eddystone the tide turned in our favour and helped us back up the channel to a fantastic second place in IRC1 and 6th overall out of about 130 boats. We even finished the race under spinnaker, crossing the line on Monday morning. What a great race! We saw a shark and a whale and had a real taste of some of the tactical problems that can arise going out towards the Fastnet itself.  The Team is bonding well and now really I am looking forward to the rest of the qualifying races.

Actually I do enjoy sailing but it is good to know there is a special reason for being out there. That will be especially true when the weather turns foul. It does that a lot. Not nice.

Please help to make it worthwhile. I really appreciate your support and good wishes.

PREVIOUSLY: In May we had our first training weekend. It was great to meet everyone from the boat and also to meet the crews of two other associated racing yachts. Such fabulous weather was unsual and refreshing! It was a weekend of light winds comparing boat speeds with different sized spinnakers to see what happened, so no hard work but the highlight of the weekend was when on Saturday night, Dee Caffari came specially to thrill us with tales about her world circumnavigations and plans for the future. It is totally inspiring to meet someone who fresh from success in the Vendee Globe round the world race wants nothing more than to go out and do it all again! Next up is the Eddystone Race.

UPDATE****** July 2009: We are doing really well - almost certainly thanks to the fantastic support shown to this fundaraising. Thank you to everyone who has so generously donated. The total is now over target! The sailing is also going really well - after a few solid performances including two hard won second places we now sit (?precariously!!) at the top of the IRC Class 1 leader board. This means lots of boats focusing on us to knock us down a peg or two. We'll see!! Thank you again for all your kind help and support. Last weekend's race to St Malo was physically tough going and your help makes a big difference.

UPDATE******1st August 2009.

Yikes! only a week to go before the big one! Team PUMA has had a real journey so far. We have known victory and defeat, both dead calms and rolling seas with winds to match. We have had rain, sun and fog. We have been on safety courses to learn how to survive in a liferaft. The races so far have been short sprints in comparison. We will need to maintain the pace and concentration over a sustained period if we want to win but at the same time find time to eat and sleep. Over the past few months we have learned to work as a unit, as a team. Are we ready?

The Fastnet Race starts next Sunday the 9th August. Please dont forget to look at the RORC website with the tracker and also the sailing logic race blog. The drama will unfold.

******Update 17 Sept 2009*****

What a fantastic experience that was. Too many memories to relate here! The Fastnet rock itself looming suddenly out of the fog that grey windy morning is never to be forgotten. And what a great year we have had. We have been competitive and worked hard to achieve a good result. We wanted to win everything, of course which was ambitious but the end result has been tremendous. On Sept 6th we finished first overall and first in class in the last race of the RORC calendar, the Cherbourg Race winning the Trophee des deux Manches. Our boat inscribed on the same silver cup as Eric Tabarly's!! At the end of the championship season we have achieved a fabulous second in IRCclass 1 and an unbelievable second overall in the RORC championship out of hundreds of boats. I must say thank you to my crew mates, to Philippe and to Allie and to Puma for looking after us and going so well. Skipper is happy, job done. I am looking forward to seeing what my family look like and my colleagues, I suspect, are just glad I can stop boring them to tears!

Thank you again for reading this and thank you for your practical and generous response. Ben.

****STOP PRESS: FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT*****

It is with immense pride that we announce that one of our Reflex 38 yachts, Puma Logic, skippered by Philippe Falle, Sailing Logic's Racing Director, has been awarded the 'RORC Yacht of the Year 2009'.

This prestigious and most famous award is made by the RORC Committee with many factors taken into consideration. Puma Logic receives the award in recognition of not only a successful season, but also and in particular, for consistent racing performance while introducing a large number of people to the sport at a highly competitive level.

This is an amazing achievement for our offshore team on Puma Logic and one which we are immensely proud of.

The jubilant team of Puma Logic will be attending the RORC prize giving to collect the Somerset Memorial Trophy on 7th November at the Banqueting Hall in London. In addition to this most prestigious award Puma Logic has also won the RORC School Boat of the Year trophy for the 5th consecutive year. Indeed it is skipper Philippe Falle’s 7th consecutive year of winning the trophy.

On hearing the news Philippe commented; ‘I am in a state of shock and overwhelmed with pride. We have had an amazing team for the past two seasons and this is the absolute perfect ending to the Puma 08/09 seasons. I could not have dreamt of a better way to end the campaign. I did not see this coming but I am so pleased to have been a part of a fabulous team that has been considered a worthy recipient of RORC’s highest annual accolade. I am not quite sure where we can go from here though!’

Allie Smith, MD of Sailing Logic, says 'What an amazing achievement for Philippe and the crew of Puma Logic! They have worked incredibly hard over the last two years to compete at the highest level possible. They have genuinely earned the respect of their fellow sailors out on the race course and this fantastic recognition of their dedication and skill is justly deserved. We believe that it is the first time that a Sailing School has ever won this award which makes the achievement all the more special'.

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Thank you for your help and support