special report
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 AC45 action for the American Youth Sailing Force. ©2012 Erik Simonson/www.pressure-drop.us |
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What's Next for AYSF? December 9, 2012 At the end of November, the Bay Area-based American Youth Sailing Force was selected for the Red Bull Youth America's Cup, a regatta to be held in AC45s just before America's Cup 34. The sailors must all be between the ages of 19 and 24 by the date of competition. What follows is a firsthand account of the thoughts going through the team members' minds. A year ago when Red Bull announced their sponsorship of the Youth America’s Cup, five of us began planning for this day. We started with good sailing resumes but little else. Today we stand as one of the teams competing in the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup where we will represent Oracle Team USA and the City of San Francisco. I can’t begin to describe the emotions running through all of us in the American Youth Sailing Force as we waited for the results of the tryouts. We knew going into them two weeks ago that it was a “win or go home” competition. So now that we have our spot in the regatta assured, the most important question is what’s next for the AYSF? Two big words, Training and Fundraising. Over the past five months we’ve done a lot of cross training in big fast catamarans to develop some basic boat handling skills. Now that we know we’ll be competing, we can focus on training both on and off the water. We’ve seen the level of physical fitness we need if we want be the best prepared team come September 1, 2013. We’ve also seen how much there is to learn about team mechanics and crew positions on the AC45 boats. Having the support of Oracle Team USA allows us access to all their accumulated knowledge about getting the most out of sailing the AC45s. Their two-boat training program gives us a jumpstart on what it takes to race them competitively. At the same time we are in the gym and on the boats, we will be moving forward on raising the funding our program needs. While we have received early support from both sponsors and donors that helped get our campaign to this point, we are now kicking our fund-raising into high gear. We need to raise a lot more money since this will be our “job” from March through early September next year. We are looking at corporate sponsorship to raise significant dollars and individual donor contributions to supplement that. We also have plans to hold fund-raising events both in the Bay Area and Seattle to broaden the base of our support. Crowd source funding sites like Kickstarter will give us the opportunity to reach out to much bigger groups of people to find our needed cash. Our team has partnered with the non-profit Skiff Sailing Foundation so we are able to accept tax-deductible donations. You can find out more about how you can help us at www.americanyouthsailingforce.com and clicking on the donate tab. I want to wholeheartedly thank everyone who has helped AYSF to this point. The success of this team cannot be solely placed just on the sailors. The guidance and backing from numerous people and businesses have been the true backbone of this team. We know that with your support we will keep growing on that. Keep following the team as we take the next big step forward. You can stay tuned in by following us on our Web site, Facebook page and video site. - Ian Andrewes, Team Manager, AYSF The American Youth Sailing Force – Team San Francisco is:
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