Venture Cup

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I've been asked to publish the following, which has also just been sent out by email:

TEAMS,

It is with regret, I'm sure, that we all received yesterday's news about the cancellation of the Venture Cup. However we believe that all is not lost; the Offshore Racing Committee (ORC) has a meeting today at the RYA to start to seek a way forward.

It is then proposed to hold a meeting of all interested parties before the end of the year to reach a consensus. This will be held both in person and online (through a live private channel) to keep costs to a minimum. If you could kindly contact either myself or Aidan by email as soon as possible to state your teams position: ie: are you going to race, if not why not, if so is there anything that you need or would like to be changed? We will try to collate all of this information to form a true picture of the demand and to create a race that we all want.

Once we know where we are, we will broadcast this information to all who have said they are back in this terrific challenge. It is our very firm belief that there is a genuine demand from at least 20 boats, so we have a race!

It's timely to thank Mike Lloyd for getting us all so far; with the support of his team he had the vision and determination to put in countless thousands of hours, (literally), on this project. I am sure that we all hope that he will choose to still be involved, albeit in perhaps a little less of the limelight.

We have to remain positive, supportive and freely exchange ideas and information to get this great event back on its feet again. There is a massive undertaking here and so many people want it to happen, we cannot underestimate the challenges ahead and the need for compromise facing us both on the sea and in the preparation for such an event.

We look forward to hearing from you soonest.

Signatories:

- Simon Wood Power
- Peter Dredge
- Markus Hendricks
- Steve Curtis MBE
- Ole Herman Finholt
- Richard Carlton
- David Graham Smith
- Alan Goodwin
- Aidan Foley