Brock Callen reporting from China
11th Hour Racing Ambassador Brock Callen was racing in Qingdao, China, for the Extreme Sailing Series a couple of weeks ago.
He reported on the sustainability practices around the marina and checked in with the organizers: “All the trash cans in the marina area have ‘recyclable’ on one side and ‘unrecyclable’ on the other, and there are a lot of people on bikes.”
Pro,opted by Brock, the organizes highlighted some of the Extreme Sailing Series sustainability practices: “The event endeavours to minimise the use of vehicles by facilitating the proximity location of hotels and race village for event organiser staff, teams, media and guests. By managing the Extreme 40 class, the event organiser shares its own class resources with all the teams to minimise the amount of teams staff that need to travel to the events as well as the amount of boat parts each teams needs to carry as the Class management team carries an inventory of parts to share with all the team if needed. The Extreme Sailing Series favours “IKEA style” packable/foldable/easy to assemble and disassemble materials across de event: furniture, boats, VIP marquee elements, etc, and most of these elements are wrapped in recyclable and reusable fabric such as carpet, rather than plastic. By using a digital processing system for all accreditation and reception registering systems as well as media tools, the Series reduces the use of paper to a minimum.”
Totalboatshow, a Blog for Boaters, caught up with Brock while he was in China and wrote a a nice story about him… Here is an excerpt:
Brock lives on Martha’s Vineyard where he spends much of his time with his family and on the water. He has his own blog which focuses on his ocean antics like traveling to sail or kite in warmer climes in the cold winters and finding fast and furious boats or boards to use for setting records (he kited from MV to Block Island last fall – and from Antigua to St. Maarten this winter) or just for going as fast as possible. The kite missions were to benefit Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, another one of Brock’s marine partners in the fight to clean up our oceans.
BC: “I am in Qingdao China for the Extreme Sailing Series. (http://www.extremesailingseries.com) Then next week I travel right from China to St. Thomas to put the TP52 on a ship to come back north to Newport. Hopefully I will make it back to Newport in time for the Volvo Ocean Race and to participate with 11th Hour Racing in the Interactive Education Zone. (https://11thhourracing.org/all-projects/volvo-ocean-race-newport-stopover-educational-program) Of course between all of this I will need to spend some time at home and also rigging the Swan 601 for the season and of course testing some Hydrofoils with Delta Hydrofoils. So there you have it – that’s my life this time of year. It requires plenty of espresso but I am really thankful for the life I get to live. It’s a huge amount of fun.”