2010 Vanuatu Humanitarian Aid Effort - Wish List

The second of the ORCV's Long Distance Offshore Sailing Seminars was held recently at the Royal Brighton Yacht Club of Victoria. As usual, it was a truly informative session and attendees were certainly armed with plenty of questions. Naturally, this is great and it is also good to see people using these free, yet completely invaluable seminars, to the best of their needs and requirements. "The comments, questions and contributions were just great", was how Neville 'Nifty' Rose summed up the evening. (Nifty heads the sub-committee which organises all of the training that the ORCV undertakes.)

You can read about the upcoming ones and why, as a racer or a cruiser to any long distance location, you should attend, just by clicking HERE.

David James walked everyone through the major requirements of Category One racing and highlighted the need to get on to certain things early, to avoid disappointment. "Do it early, in case you have to pick up stuff", was how David finished.

Power and Communications was the domain of Markus Grinblat. He had a lot of facts and experience to pass on and indicated that you need three times the power draw in storage. "The new generation of solar panels are so very efficient and for me, Lithium ion batts are the way to go. If your batteries are already three years old, they may well be too old. An invertor is not the best solution for running a PC alone. You're better off finding a convertor for 12V up to the 15 or 18 V required by your PC", were just some of the gems he pointed out.

In terms of communications, Markus walked through HF SailMail and modem for email, RadTel for voice on HF and SatPhone footprints. Importantly, he also got the audience's attention and involvement with the discussion over AIS. He would prefer to do the AIS as a duplex off the existing HF aerial and noted that Type A AIS, for around AU$2500, operates at 12W and has priority over Type B, which is 5W. He suggested all sailors look at marinetraffic.com to get an appreciation of these remarkable devices.

Mark Crockford from Nautilus Marine Insurance came straight from the airport to address the gathering on the subject of insurance. Although a subject not often the most desirable to talk about, Mark seized the momentum and apologised for his late plane, which meant he would be the last speaker. The audience was delighted to have him there and Mark fielded a lot of questions and covered a lot of ground, as a result. He urged Skippers to answer their blue water questionnaire, if they had not already completed one, as it also looks at the crew and their skill set. "We do require an out of water inspection and rig test, which would be done at your cost. Please also check your re-insurer situation, as the underwriter may not have the necessary treaties in place for some of the locations being planned." Boat age, the type of construction and rig will play a part in the cost of premium, which is typically 1.5 to 2% of the sum insured and excesses will be around 10% of the sum insured.

Mark finished with, "Get a broker on it, if you don’t have coverage, but get on to it now!"

Our ORCV Commodore, George Shaw, then walked us through the Yachting Australia Blue Book in relation to water for consumption, the tanks that hold it, pumps that move it, water makers that create it and harvesting the marvellous substance off the sails etc.

Now. The wish list thing relates to the fact that it is not just yachts and crews that make their way into the Pacific Isles during the Southern Winter. For the second time, the ORCV's Melbourne to Vanuatu race will have a humanitarian project attached to it. Please click HERE to see how the humanitarian aid panned out for the first M2V race in 2006.

To see what the trip looked like in pictures click HERE and in a short video, click HERE.

For the 2010 M2V race, the Rotary Club of North Brighton is supporting the ORCV's Vanuatu humanitarian project by publicising the project, providing storage at their Donation-In-Kind warehouse facility in Footscray and assisting with the final sorting, packaging and loading of the gifts into the container.

Primarily, the ORCV is seeking donations of school and sporting supplies, which will equip the 850 children who attend the North Vila School on the island of Efate.  In addition, yachts planning to cruise around the islands, after the race, will deliver gift packages to schools in some of the outer islands. Please help, with whatever you can organise, as they really do have nothing, so any item is completely cherished! For example, part of the cutlery and crockery sent last time is used by the hospital and the remainder by the hospitality school to teach people how to set tables at the resorts. 60 PCs, which had become surplus to requirements at the Gordon Institute of TAFE, made the journey into the Pacific too.

All right then. APC Logistics are already in for the hire and transportation of a 20’ container (which you can read about HERE) and on the night, it was also revealed that they had found 14, no-longer-required, PCs in their office that will be on their way soon, as part of the end of May aid shipment to Vanuatu. Many more thanks to them for their unending generosity. 

So what about you then? Well here is the wish list and you can take any part of that. You may even have your own ideas for donations, based on your own areas of influence. By the way, a pallet of A4 paper has also just been ticked off the list, too.

The container will be loaded and shipped at the end of May, therefore all donations need to reach the warehouse by the middle of May, so as to allow time for sorting and packaging.

The warehouse address is as listed, and please remember to use the label, which is available from the link below:

Vanuatu School Project

Rotary DIK Warehouse

Rear of Woolshed 40 (enter gate 1)

400 Somerville Road

(between Paramount & Geelong Rds)

West Footscray, Victoria, 3012

Click HERE to get your label to affix to your donations to assist in the identification of your donations, when they arrive at the Rotary DIK warehouse

If you have any questions please contact:

Richard Potter of the Rotary Club of Brighton North, on 9592 3431 and 0419 303 545

Robyn Brooke of the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria, on 8601 5882 and 0438 303 321

Brian Slater of APC Logistics, on 9644 7222 and 0425 763 473

Click HERE to get your competitor space allocation form for your gear to be sent over in the container for your return voyage etc.

You get a little over one cubic metre per vessel.

The volunteers are countless, but all have one mission in mind - to make ORCV racing as safe, enjoyable and worthwhile as possible. The Committee would like to thank each and every one of them for their efforts.

Whilst sailing to Vanuatu may be on a lot of athletes' Wish Lists, assisting the children at the North Vila School can be on everyone's. See if you can make a difference and harness the power of man's oldest challenge to provide for change to a struggling Pacific community. Vanuatu may well be full of smiles. We bet you will smile, when you see how your donation gets right to the people who need it most.

By John Curnow