Round 'De Rock'

How long will it take them?

The Kirkland Brothers, in a bid to raise public awareness of their Olympic dreams and help fund raise their sailing campaign, are set to sail around Bermuda this week. They envisage it being a two-fold challenge, one for themselves to sail the “bronco” around the 36-mile circumference of the island in good time and lastly, for the public to try and estimate their circumnavigation time. Neither of them is an easy task, for the sailing is going to be draining over that type of a distance and the rubric to figure out their time is equally daunting because of the abundance of variables in a sailboat speed run.

$10 buy-in to get your estimate on the books. The winner will be receiving gift vouchers to AS Coopers, Butterfield and Vallis and the Olympic Club. The cash pool raised goes to support their run-up to next summer’s Olympics in London. Their six figure budget over the next year is dominated by world-class coaching expenses as they attack the important nuances of sailing the boat. Call 236-0383 to log your bet or drop it by Mailboxes in town. You can do it electronically by emailing zankirkland@hotmail.com and then paying by bank transfer, with the time in the memo. This is another example (Roy Allen’s “Dash for Cash”) of ‘cash strapped’ BOA Elite athletes getting imaginative to raise money for their Olympic aspirations.

Hints for everyone to base their estimate around. Their clockwise circumnavigation attempt will start and finish at Hogfish Beacon off Spanish Point. The highest speeds (in excess of 20 kts) of the trip, should be on the North Shore, where they will have their giant spinnaker up and minimal big waves to slow them down. Their speed will drop when they attack the wind on the South Shore and also have to manage the swell outside the reefs. Total distance around is estimated to be just over 36 nautical miles.

Stay up-to-date (for exact start time) electronically by following the campaign’s Facebook page “Kirkland Brothers 49er Sailing”. Also they will try and get airtime on the local radio stations to keep everyone abreast of their progress around. Tenative start-time is 11am this coming Thursday, starting time from Hogfish. They will have a GPS onboard to record the actual distance sailed and the top speed of the sail.

With the wind out of the South-West, the South Shore will be a great place to view the boat jumping in the waves. They are planning on coming inside the reef near Elbow Beach for a fly-by. Other good places to view the Brothers in action would be: Crawl Hill, Ferry Reach, Fort St. Catherines, St. David’s Head, Spittal Pond, Horshoe Bay, Church Bay, Whale Bay, Somerset Long Bay, and Commissioner’s House as they head for the finish!

They welcome any other challengers with a sail to take them on and are interested to hear about any past performances. Windsurfers currently hold the outright speed record for the circumnavigation by a sailing craft, but they want to have the fastest sailboat time on the books.

The Brothers are home for two more weeks to fundraise (by this event and painting houses) and then are off to California for the Fall to compete in the Pacific Coast Championships and the North American Championships. They will be racing with top North American and European sailors as everyone preps for the 2011 World Championships, which are this December in Perth, Australia.