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I am doing a sponsored cycle (on a tandem with a friend Liz) to raise funds for Blind Sailing and, in particular, to contribute towards the entry fees for the GB team competing in the world blind sailing championship in Sheboygan, US in September. 

The Prudential Ride 46 is, I am told, a spectacular 46-mile route beginning at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London and following the same route as the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 for the first 27 miles before taking a new two-mile route, which then links up with the last 17 miles through London to the finish in The Mall. 

There’s a challenging (for us) time limit to ensure that I don’t treat this as a leisurely cycle and thousands of other competitors and some hills for us to negotiate on our trusty (but not particularly speedy) tandem.

Raising funds for the World championships.The world blind sailing championship takes place in Sheboygan, United States from 12 to 17 September. With the country team trophy to defend, GB is sending a full country team of 12 competitors (3 boats) plus an additional crew of 4 to give international race experience to less experienced sailors. In addition to the costs of flights, accommodation, training weekends, insurance and other expenses, each boat crew pays an entry fee of around £1,000. So, I’m aiming to raise the equivalent of half of the entry fees.

The event is for teams made up of an equal number of sighted and visually impaired sailors. There are three series of races in this event each for sailors with different levels of vision. The crew for each boat is made up of 2 visually impaired sailors to helm and mainsheet, and 2 sighted sailors as foresail crew and tactician. 

I have helmed in the B1 category (i.e. least vision) at the previous two fleet racing World Championships (2013 and 2015) and I’ve been lucky to be selected again.Blind Sailing (the charity) is responsible for selecting the team and will arrange coaching and training weekends leading up to the event but does not receive any public funding to support the team going to Sheboygan. 

With this in mind, I want to raise funds to cover a small part of the costs – the entry fees that the team members are splitting between them.