Faceboat Sailors with disABILITIES

Since 2010, the Sailors With Disabilities team has been sailing the TP52, Wot Eva (the former Wot Yot, which was generously donated to SWD by wotif.com co-founder Graeme Wood), to Hobart with mixed success. This year, the crew is back to sailing it’s work horse, the Lyons 54 that won PHS in the 2007 Hobart after winning PHS in the 2006 Sydney Mooloolaba race and scoring second in the inaugural Sydney Mackay Yacht Race in 2006. Pescud and crew famously also won PHS overall in the fatal 1998 Hobart with a former yacht.

This year, SWD came up with a very clever plan, launching its ‘Face Boat’ campaign. For a tax deductible $25.00, donors can have their photo appear on the hull of the boat. Patron, Malcolm Turnbull, launched this novel campaign in September to help raise funds for SWD (go to www.faceboat.org.au for all information). There is space for more than 3,800 photos on the Lyons 54, which has contested every east coast regatta and offshore race since being launched in 2000. In July 2003, with this yacht, the disabled SWD crew shattered the monohull circumnavigation of Australia record, a record it still holds today.

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