Leukemia Cup Regatta Fantasy Sail

This past weekend, Honore and I attended the 2008 Leukemia Cup Regatta Fantasy Sail with Gary Jobson in Ft. Myers Beach, Fl. We had a BLAST! We got to race Colgate 26s(Which the Colgate Offshore Sailing School provided 10 of for us) in two sessions. A morning session of four races, and an afternoon session of three races.

Our crew raced in the afternoon session, and with me at the helm , we raced our way into 2nd place out of 9 boats. Gary Jobson came aboard and raced the final race with us, which was AWESOME. Talk about a truly amazing opportunity, to get to have a Hall of Fame Sailor come on board a 26' sailboat and race with us was unbelieveable.

It was great to see our friends from around the country. This was our fourth Fantasy Sail, and we have gotten to meet so many other sailor fundraisers from around the country it has been an amazing experience. What we have found is many of the same people return year after year, so it has become an annual reunion of sorts. (To qualify, one must simply raise $8,500 for the Leukemia Cup Regatta, its that easy.)

We also received information about the fundraising. This year, there were 38 LCRs around the country which combined to raise a record $3,675,000 for blood cancer research. The best part, to me anyway, is that 85% of that will directly fund research. The top fundraising chapter was Greater San Francisco Bay Yacht Club, which raised over $660,000. Incredible. My hats off to Ian Charles, Bill Nolan, Bill Elliott, and Kyle(I'm so sorry I can't remember his last name, but he's the incoming Commodore of the club). Anyway, Ian had a stem cell transplant in October and was scheduled to attend the Fantasy Sail, but fell ill on the Wednesday before and was unable to travel. They had the Maltese Falcon, the new $200M square rigged ship that is one of the largest private sailing ships in the world for their event, and from the sounds of it, it was incredible.

Houston chapter finished second this year and Chicago finished third. We did TERRIFIC. In a down year, we still managed to set a new record and raised $285,000. I am very proud of the committee, the LLS Staff and Columbia Yacht Club, as well as all of our sponsors and the other area clubs and participants who come together every August to make the event happen here in Chicago. It takes a year of effort, but it is one of the most rewarding things I participate in.

Yesterday, I had lunch with the outgoing Executive Director of the Illinois Chapter of the Society and the incoming event manager for the 2009 Leukemia Cup Regatta. I did commit to running the organizing committee one more time, although I made noise that this will be my last at chairperson. Having chaired the previous two years, I feel its becoming time for me to step aside and let someone else run it, however, due to so many unforeseen changes in the committee and the Society's leadership, I committed to one more year to maintain some continuity.

I'm exhausted. The sailing really took it out of me. It was great to go and have so much fun and see so many friends, but my strength is not what I had hoped it would be, so today's a major rest day for me. Then its time to dive into Christmas decorating and wrapping and playing with Hope, who's now 10 months and fascinated by all the lights.

Happy Holidays to you all. I'll write again soon.

Love,

Travis

PS - I do need to correct one thing from a previous post. Jeff Abbott has been nominated for three Edgar Allen Poe awards, but has yet to win one. He has however won the Agatha Christie, which is the best first mystery novel award. His latest is Collision and his next will be Trust Me out sometime this summer.