SOS Ocean Racing is aware that plastic bags kill marine life, not to mention being a much broader environmental hazard.

To raise awareness, this year, we've embarked on a major campaign involving the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race starting on Good Friday. This will then be followed by the big event. Ian Thomson will set sail to set a new world record for solo, non-stop and unassisted circumnavigation of Australia. The plan is a challenging one, beginning to end. Around the continent in under 50 days.

Around Australia in 50 Days

Ian will sett of in the first week of May to break the world record for sailng solo non-stop unassisted around Australia

Currently set at 68 days, Ian intends to break 50 days and establish a noteworthy benchmark for others. You will be able to follow the journey online at this site and watch live video streaming on board with daily updates. There will also be a tracker with data updating every 30 minutes. This will be one of the most interactive sailing ventures ever as technology takes you onboard the vessel with Ian. Delight in the high seas as if you were there. Stay tuned for more updates.

To support the campaign, you can sponsor the venture. Alternatively, you can be a team member with our special membership package for individuals or for families.

Major and Minor Sponsors

With decades of life: The sea turtle is one to live, the "convenient" plastic bag, sadly, is capable of destroying life's existence!

You can join the SOS Ocean Racing campaign as a major or minor sponsor. Unprecendented coverage will be provided around the world in a campaign that depicts sailing as only most of us can dream of it..

Please visit our sponsors page.

Some facts from SOS Ocean Racing are:

• Australia uses 6 billion plastic bags a year of which 3.6 billion are plastic shopping bags.
• 100,000 marine creatures a year die from plastic entanglement and these are the ones found.
• A plastic bag can kill numerous animals because they take so long to disintegrate. An animal that dies from the bag will decompose and the bag will be released, another animal could harmlessly fall victim and once again eat the same bag.
• The floods in Bangladesh in 1988 & 1998 were made more severe because plastic bags clogged drains. The government has now banned plastic bags.

• In Ireland they introduced a 15c plastic bag tax and reduced their usage by 90% in one year. It is now 22 cents.
• If each Australian family used 1 less plastic bag each week that would be 253 million bags less a year.
• The #1 man made thing that sailors see in our ocean are plastic bags.

Why?

I have sailed the world and marvelled at nature's creations. I've been awe struck as whales breached 20 meters from the bow of my boat; others scratching their back on my keel. I've enjoyed dolphins playing with my boat as we cruise under spinnaker, the moon in its resplendent full blue light. I've enjoyed turtles swimming with us in Hawaii and then again at my home in the magical Whitsundays.

But far too often I have pulled dead turtles out of the water or reported them to Marine Parks. You see, I wear a turtle around my neck. It's a Fijian symbol of long life. Yet I have seen these graceful creatures die from boat strikes, some caught in crab pots but the most senseless and most common death is by ingestion of a plastic bag. (It's worth noting that a turtle's throat has a spine with bones that stick backwards and they cannot regurgitate.)

I was perplexed by this senseless loss of life. One day I was sitting at my mates place watching TV. Waterworld the movie came on. Seeing Kevin Costner sail solo at speed hit a nerve. My nerve. I thought 'I can do that'. I spent the night researching who had sailed solo around Australia and found only 1 record, that of David Beard.

 

Since then I have managed to get to a point where I can achieve this goal. I have been blessed with position and extensive sailing experience. I want to use this for the good of the planet and in this case, to engage my passion: to significantly reduce the use of plastic bags, where practical, to get rid of them. It won't just be about sailing, I want to use the profile I build with this record to go forward and campaign the whole of Australia to do something about our plastic bag habits. You see, a sailing client and now friend put it this way, 'Ian is neither dogmatic nor radical, he's determined, kind and passionate.' ** With that thought in mind and one I hold balance in, it will then be onto the world stage. I'd like to get the message out there to the millions of people.

In the words of Ben Harper

I can change the world, with my own two hands, make a better place, with my own two hands.

It's with my two hands, a big heart, some measured intelligence and some hard earned skill, along with your help, I believe that I can change the world.

** Brian Babcock - Babcock Business Strategies, St Catherines Ontario, Canada