Bart’s Bash heats up

The inaugural Bart's Bash is a sailing race that will be run by sailing clubs all around the world on behalf of the charity, the Andrew Simpson Sailing Foundation.

Each sailing club will sail an individual Bart's Bash race at their location (with certain set requirements to meet our world record criteria) on Sunday, September 21. It is the major fundraising event for the Foundation and organisers are asking people to raise money to support its charitable work.  It is for this cause that organisers are suggesting people pay a £5 donation to take part.

The race details will be set locally by each club, but are not onerous – at a bare minimum, to meet the world record rules, the course will need to be over 1km and you must sail for more than 15 minutes. It's expected many clubs will use one of their normal Sunday morning races as their Bart's Bash race – subject to any adjustments needed for the world record and event criteria.

Full details are being provided to an organiser (the Event Maker) at each of the registered clubs who will run the race locally, co-ordinate your local race with our requirements and send through results to organisers in England for processing. You can check if your club is registered – if not, there is still time to gather support, register your club and then enter individually, or find another club to sail with.

Sign ups for Bart's Bash continue to increase and the current tempo is around 350 sailors signing up every 24 hours. This number rises every day and organisers are expecting this trend to continue.

At the time of writing, over 6000 sailors from 683 clubs had signed up for the event.

Fundraising activity is hotting up also, spurred on by the announcement of a 'money can't buy' prize to be flown out to San Fransisco by Iain Percy to stay for three nights and visit the Artemis Base, sailing on an AC45. 

To win the prize, all fundraisers have to do is to raise £150 through their JustGiving page – the value required to attain a bronze medal. 

The biggest sailing race in the world – ever – is a few short days away and the anticipation is building...

For more information go to: www.bartsbash.co.uk