| Pindar |
| Monday, 20 November 2006 |
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Mike first joined the Pindar team to sail in the TJV 2003. Pindar, the international print and electronic media company who also sponsor Emma Sanderson (nee Richards), have a distinguished sailing team and a long term association with sailing sponsorship. Following the TJV, that Mike co-skippered with Emma, Mike began working on the Open 60 Pindar AlpahGraphics with the Pindar team.
Following a long term desire to turn his sailing knowledge and expertise to single handed sailing, Mike entered the Transat 2004 on Pindar AlphaGraphics. Again, working with Emma Sanderson (nee Richards) and the team Mike had the boat prepared and ready for the start of the race in Plymouth, UK. Mike spent a large part of the race to Boston, US in a battle with Mike Golding who was the other front runner in the fleet. Unfortunately for Mike in a storm that passed over the fleet dismasting a fellow competitior Mike broke one of his daggerboards. While this did not affect him for a majority of the race a few days from Boston the wind shifted and Mike was severely crippled by the damage. Mike sailed into Boston Harbour on Sunday 13th June in third place sealing a podium place in his first solo race.
Mike is currently heading up the design and build of Pindar’s brand new state-of-the-art Open 60 racing yacht. The boat, to be built in TP Cookson’s yard in New Zealand, is due to come out of the shed in Summer 2007 and will be in the UK in time for the Fastnet Race. The competition schedule will also include The Transat Jacques Vabre double-handed transatlantic race from France to Brazil in Nov 2007 and the solo transatlantic race, the Transat. This is the race that Mike competed in two years ago and despite having never competed alone before he finished in a creditable third place following gear failure that ended his battle for first place. The campaign, which is currently looking for partner sponsors, will produce one of the first of a new breed of Open 60’s, capable of breaking new boundaries, setting new records and winning races. Mike and the Pindar team have been collaborating with Juan Kouyoumdjian, otherwise known as ‘Juan K’, who designed the two ABN AMRO Volvo 70s.
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