Remembering John Borlotti 1966-2011

Many of you have asked about making a charity contribution in honour of John's memory.  Jess and his family have chosen the Tall Ships Youth Trust, which had special meaning to John.

 The Tall Ships Youth Trust is the world’s oldest, largest sail training charity for 12-25 year olds.  70% of the young people are disadvantaged/disabled and the Trust relies on over 2,500 volunteers, one of whom was John. 

 John’s first voyage was the Malcolm Miller 621 from Las Palmas to Las Palmas as a trainee in January 1995.  He was then recommended by the salaried crew to join the volunteer crew and after that sailed as a volunteer on 3 more voyages. The Sir Winston Churchill voyage 549 from Las Palmas to Las Palmas in January 1996, the Malcolm Miller voyage 656 Greenock to Aberdeen in May 1966 and the Sir Winston Churchill 600 from Tenerife to Tenerife in January 1998.

The Tall Ships Youth Trust volunteer crew are the absolute backbone of their voyages – put simply, they couldn’t do the wonderful work with young people that they do without the support, energy and enthusiasm of volunteers like John – and they will always be grateful for his contribution to their work – as will the many, many trainees that he looked after as a Watch Leader.

The role of Watch Leader is a very challenging one – each Leader has a group of 13 individuals to look after, to teach and motivate. None of the 13 will have sailed before. Many are nervous and/or sea sick. So it takes a very special person to coax and chivvy them along so that at the end of a voyage, they call all look back and say “wow that was great – can we do it again?”.

The Trust’s Chief Executive wanted us all to know this background because the very fact that John was recommended for Watch Leader meant that he was recognised by his fellow crew as one of those special people with special leadership and motivational talents.

On behalf of Jess, John’s family and the Tall Ships Youth Trust, thank you for thinking about giving donations in memory of John.  The Trust will honour our wishes of using any donations received to provide bursaries to young disadvantaged and disabled people who otherwise wouldn’t get a chance to sail with them.

Thank you all so much.

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