In our last Newsletter we included an item about the impending departure of the yacht Chimere from Sydney Harbour bound for Vanuatu. It is hard to believe that time has flown by and that the 5 month project is over, having been successfully completed with the yacht and all its crew safely back home.
This year Application Solutions Director, Andrew Latimer, was joined by DNA Electrical’s Dave Mears. Andrew and Dave work together on many energy efficiency projects in the normal course of things, but now they were to be together 24/7 in the confines of a small boat. We are happy to report that this social experiment worked and they are both still on very good terms.
Skipper, Andrew Latimer… at the helm, and helping the dentist
Dave Mears at the helm, and doing one of the many technical jobs on the list
Andrew and Dave worked on Tour 2 throughout August last year and were joined by 9 other volunteers. It really was a tight squeeze. Volunteers were chosen for their various skills such as medical, dental, optometry, sailing, boat engineering etc. One of our sailors, Denis Flores, revealed hidden talents as a cordon bleu chef. He was promoted from sailor to ship’s cook and ably prepared 11 meals three times a day for a month. He even baked bread every day. When he wasn’t busy cooking he was seconded to the medical team because of his talents with the pressure cooker. The pressure cooker was kept running all day sterilising dental instruments. His peak performance enabled the dentist to set a project record of 93 extractions in one day. Denis finished the Tour a very tired but happy man.
Denis in full flight in the tiny galley
For those of you interested in more detail please go to the MSM website.
or read Andrew’s daily log (sometimes called the Slog) for tour 2 can be found here: (start at the bottom of the page and work up. Having reached the top, the link for following page is back down at the bottom of the page!)
We do not expect there will be a sailing project in 2014 but if you would like to volunteer for future voyages please contact Andrew at Application Solutions.
