Dear Friends,

By the time you read this I will have started on a Tall Ships sailing adventure. I am a crew member in this year’s Arc Challenge in which 200 boats sail the Atlantic 2,700 miles from Gran Canaria to St Lucia. It should take 18 days and I will not be back home till mid December. My crew members are not experienced blue water sailors and, like me, are sailing to the Americas for the first time. They include a policeman, a fireman, a doctor, a retired airline pilot, a stonemason, a musician and a gap year student. Fifty years ago I made the same trip but on a banana boat from Hull to the Virgin Islands to work on a hydroponics farm.

For the past 20 years I have been helping Orford Sailing Club, on the Alde &0re estuary in Suffolk,  reach out to young people whose families have never been sailors. It is wonderful to see the impact learning to sail has on self confidence, decision making and speaking up within a group. What a gift it is to learn a new skill early!

We train around 10 people a season so 200 so far. We would love to extend this approach and I write to ask your support on behalf of the Tall Ships Youth Trust. 

We are on board Tall Ships’Youth Trust ‘Challenger 1’. Tall Ships do great work giving young people the opportunity to experience the teamwork necessary to handle the pressures of a sea voyage.  You can track the race on Tall Ships’ website where you select ‘fleet tracker’ and then ‘Challenger 1’.

If you would like to sponsor me on this personal challenge, please look at my JustGiving page. 

I will let you know how we get on.

Best wishes

Sheena Barrow