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Club News

Whitstable sailor swaps sails for oars for Atlantic Challenge

Posted: Saturday, 19 July, 2014

In December of next year, friend of WYC Dan Parsons (pictured sailing in the Merlin Nationals at Whitstable with Hamish Kilburn) and teammate Olly Clark will start on an epic trip to row the 3000 miles from the Canary Islands to Antigua in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. As part of the campaign they're also looking to support two very deserving charities, Prostate Cancer UK and ABF, the Soldier's Charity.

To find out more, and to keep updated with their progress, see the website at atlantic-row.com, Facebook at facebook.com/RowAtlantic2015 or twitter at @RowAtlantic2015.

Dan has been a member of the club for 20 years...

...starting in Toppers and quickly progressing to skiffs, where at 13 he started crewing, and then helming, in B14s. Since Topper days he’s sailed in just about everything available. He was the 100th boat entered into the Tasar Worlds that we had at the club. He’s had a Musto Skiff and Merlin Rocket, winning Whitstable Weeks and Wednesday Evening Series, and has won most of the available Cadet trophies. From 16 he travelled further afield, and at Loughborough University when he joined the British Sailing Team, working closely with the Paralympic Sonar Team as sparring partner. There he travelled the world, always entering under the WYC burgee - even winning the Miami OCR in 2007 with fellow Whitstable member Tom Pygall!

More recently, he’s sailed with Chris Lewns in the 505, where they’ve enjoyed a great deal of success, with race wins in the highly competitive worlds fleet in La Rochelle, top three British team in a number of international events and race wins and podium positions in UK and continental nationals.

Dan’s now put his sailing on the back burner, whilst pouring everything into the challenge, and we hope to see him back at WYC with some great stories when the race is over!

atlantic-row.com