Here's an inspiring story. Sorry it has sailing content, but it is a passagemaking event. __________________________________ * The vessel Bubala gets underway Monday, and for its captain and crew, the start of the Transpacific Yacht Race can't come soon enough. After all, they're not getting any younger. The youngest is 65, the oldest 72. Few are experienced at offshore racing, and none have unrealistic ambitions as they prepare to embark on their first Transpac, a 2,225-nautical-mile journey from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Their goal, skipper Lloyd Salinger says, is to not finish last in class. Salinger, a Newport Beach oil-exploration executive tried to sign on as a crewman aboard someone else's Cal 40 during the last go-around in 2003 but was turned down because of his age. "So I said I'd do it myself," the 72-year-old skipper says, pointedly. "And I would get a whole crew, and they'd all be over 65, and I'll show you." He refurbished the keel of a Cal 40 he has owned since 1983. He bought a new mast and installed new instruments. He placed an ad in a sailing magazine, announcing tryouts. He felt bad because some of the people answering it were clearly unfit for such an arduous journey and "now here I am turning people down," he says. - Excerpts from a story by Pete Thomas in the Los Angeles Times, fullstory: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-oldsailors10jul10,1,1113060.story * While other Transpac sailors did their last minute packing and storing of provisions and gear on their Hawaii-bound sailboats, the Challenged America Team had more important items to also bring aboard B'Quest, their Tripp 40 sailboat. Needles, catheters, syringes, infusion sets, medications, antibiotics, emergency surgical supplies and equipment, plenty of batteries for the medical devices (blood testing and blood pressure machines, insulin pumps), and then the extensively stocked emergency kit of first aid supplies, furnished by doctors and medical professionals, along with their phone numbers in case of emergency. Securing a satellite phone, an expense beyond their already over burdened Transpac budget, was an emergency device they had to get. The six Challenged America sailors in this year's Transpac have disabilities and medical conditions to include quadriplegia, amputation, blindness, arthritis, diabetes, cancer and stroke survivors, recent kidney transplant, and other challenges. Hopefully they won't need these extra provisions, but they are available if they or other Transpac racers need them. www.challengedamerica.org Brian Eiland beiland@usa.net http://www.RunningTideYachts.com distinctive multihull expedition yachts