Please help me raise some money for a great local charity!  I am taking part in the 2012 Clyde Corporate Challenge to raise money for the Ocean Youth Trust Scotland.

WHAT’S THE CHARITY?

The OYT are a fantastic local charity with a 50 year history of providing Adventure under Sail for young people.  They provide residential voyages to promote lifelong learning, prospects and employability in young people.  In 2011, over 800 young people sailed with OYTS on youth development voyages and over a quarter of those young people were from disadvantaged backgrounds.  To find out more about OYT, please go to www.oytscotland.org.uk.  The OYT is a fabulous charity that provides young people with the opportunity of a life changing experience and I would like to help them as much as I can.

WHAT’S THE EVENT?

As part of a team of 12, I will be taking part in a biathlon with a difference!  Racing a 74’ ocean going yacht (ex BT Global Challenge Race yacht – the famous ‘round the world the wrong way’ race series) combined with a team cycle race.  The event takes place on the weekend of 28/29th April.  Our team will be racing a team from KPMG in an identical yacht from Greenock to the isle of Cumbrae.  The entire team will then go ashore and complete a ‘round the island’ cycle race with a difference - as we are racing identical yachts, we have decided race identical bikes (we have managed to get 24 of the 'Barclays bikes' usually used for hire in London)!  After that we are back on board to continue the yacht race to Portavadie marina on Loch Fyne.  We then collapse exhausted overnight, before racing the yachts back to Greenock on the Sunday! 

The boats are designed to be raced by a crew of 18 experienced sailors, so we will have our work cut out as 9 of the 12 are complete novices!.  If you want to see the yachts in-action, watch out for them taking part in First Nation Home, the celebrity/sports star Round the UK race for Sports Relief Day in March.   
 
As a team we are delighted to be taking part in the inaugural ‘Cumbrae Caper’ and we hope to make it such a success that it will become a really popular annual event that Glasgow businesses can participate in each year.

Thank you so much for your help, here’s hoping I make it back to dry land!