Picture of Alex Alley heading into the Southern Ocean

The Little Ship Club stand at the January boat show is set to be buzzing with activity with visits from noteworthy members and associates. One of them will be Club member Alex Alley, on the morning of Friday 15 January at 11am, to promote his plans to compete in the Global Ocean Race 2011-12.

Alex is not your average sailor or typical Little Ship Club member. Already with one circumnavigation and over 100,000 racing miles behind him, he is now setting off on his toughest challenge yet.

This time there are only two crew, racing an ultra fast 40ft yacht. Well over 2000 square feet of sail pushes along a boat weighing in at just 4 ½ tons! Speeds in excess of 20 knots are commonplace. Beating the other Class 40 yachts means lack of sleep, hard work, and pushing the boat 24 hours a day, for weeks on end.

The race begins on 11 September 2011 from Northern Europe. The 25 yachts then race to Cape Town. After a well earned rest they prepare the yachts for the Southern Ocean blast to Wellington, making sure they keep clear of icebergs.

From Wellington the fleet heads back into the Southern Ocean again for the longest leg of the race, across the Pacific, round Cape Horn and up the South American coast to Ilhabella, near Rio in Brazil. The boats then cross the equator back into the Northern hemisphere, stopping in Charleston before heading across the Atlantic to the finish around May 2012 – 33,000 miles in all.(www.globaloceanrace.com)

But for Alex and co-skipper David Thomson (brother of Hugo Boss skipper Alex Thomson), the challenge starts now, by raising the funds needed to compete. Their unusual approach is the ‘People’s Boat’ campaign. Alex says: “Rather than having a single large sponsor for the boat, we decided to have several sponsors. Then we kept breaking it down and we have ended up with a boat that will be sponsored by literally thousands of people, each paying around £25 to have their picture or logo on the hull of the boat, like a great big mosaic”.

The boat can be seen on the campaign website, www.peoplesboat.com. At the end of the race, the boat will be sold and all the proceeds will be donated to charity. This is expected to raise between £150,000 and £200,000.

As Alex says: “It’s a chance for the average person to become fully involved in a round the world race campaign by sponsoring the boat and metaphorically sailing with us on the People’s Boat".

Alex helming a Class 40 yacht at the Horta start for the return leg of the Les Sables d'Olonne-Horta race July 2009

 Alex Alley helming