Mr. Chairman, Honoured Guests.
What is...... the Spirit of Canada?
The Spirit of Canada is ....... Right in this room
It is the character .....of all of you .....here
And .... Of all of the Canadian people.
This spirit and this character comes...... from the dreams and the hopes
that Canadians have.... for the future.
Most of us have..... fairly modest ambitions....and dreams....and aspirations
However a few individuals dream...... on another scale altogether
They dream large..... and in Technicolor.
And The rest of us look in turn... to these people
for our own inspiration
Derek Hatfield ......is to one of these.
Derek is a former RCMP..... fraud investigator
He is now a professional sailor ......and public speaker.
Today I want to tell you..... about this inspiring man...
and the tradition ...... which he is continuing
Hatfield has a dream............ which is that he wants to...... win
the next single handed..... Around the World..... sailboat race,
which takes place in 2006.
And the name of his sailboat happens to be..... The Spirit of Canada.
These races have been held
once every four years .... For the past thirty years
And This will be Hatfield's second attempt
In the 2002 race.... the Spirit of Canada was a 40 foot boat
In its 2006 version .....the Spirit
Will be a newly built boat............ of 60 feet in length
Last month Derek.... came to Belleville
to give a public speech.... about his 2002 adventure.
In his speech, he described ......how he set off in his high tech sailboat
And Sailed 27,000 miles ............. over 8 months
and eventually arrived back home............ after 182 actual days at sea
The race was held in four legs....the boats sailed from Newport, RI..
To England....to S Africa....to New Zealand....
then around the dreaded Cape Horn....at the southern tip of South America
....To Brazil and then home
There were 13 boats.... that started the race....
Only 9 of them finished....among them, the Spirit of Canada
Hatfield's voyage was quite an adventure
It was marked by a couple of... hair raising incidents.
Predictably, both of these happened .....near the infamous Cape Horn.
But Derek was able to continue....because , as he said, he had learned
"the intuitiveness.... to keep going ...when it looks bad.... to persevere"
Most of boats competing.....were sponsored by large corporations
And they had large and expensive..... support teams.
But The Spirit of Canada ....was a notable exception
It was largely funded by donations...... from individuals... across Canada.
And Hatfield's support team.... consisted of... one assistant
Who met him .............at the various ports of call.....
as he made his way....... around the world
The next version of the Spirit of Canada
is to be funded.... the same way,
and this accounts.....for Derek's frequent appearances.....
as a public speaker.....as he travels across the country
raising funds.... for the project
Hatfield is continuing a tradition ....which began back in 1966 and 1967
When Two English sailors......... Francis Chichester and then Alec Rose
Began as solo sailors..... racing small sailboats around the globe.
Francis Chichester was a 67 year old businessman and adventurer,
He dreamed....... of doing in a small yacht
What the huge Clipper ships of a century before............ routinely did
Which was to sail around the world...........in two legs of 100 days each.
So Chichester's race ....was a race against time....
And He built a 53 foot vessel....the Gypsy Moth.....for that purpose
He set off in September 1966
and had all kinds of problems on the first leg ......to Australia
He had injured his own leg..... during the sea trials.
The boat was poorly designed.
The keel was the wrong shape....and had to be rebuilt twice
And Then... when he was halfway to NZ .........in the middle of the ocean
The all important...... self steering gear....... failed .....
He could very easily have given up....... at that point
But his attitude was.....in his own words
"I hate turning back ; I hate giving up; and I hate being diverted from my course;
it is a seaman's job to get over difficulties."
So out in the middle of the ocean....all by himself
he improvised...... a small and rather ingenious ....steering sail
which kept the boat on track... and allowed him to continue on
He got to Sydney Australia ..in the record time of 107 days.
At that point ....there was a heated public discussion in Britain
About whether the intrepid... but aging... Chichester
should continue on .......with the second leg..... around Cape Horn
because of the dangers that the journey held.... for a small yacht
Captain Allan Villiers .....implored his old friend ... not to go on
He said, "Chichester has done enough ....I've told him that he is an inspiration now,
but that he won't be.... if he is thrown into those savage seas"
Captain John Jagoe .... was not quite so polite
He said Chichester must be a "glorious bloody fool" to continue on
Chichester's reply........... was:
"I wish that everyone would pipe down..... and let me get on with the job."
And with that, off he sailed......into the second leg, out into the Southern Ocean
When he got to Cape Horn....he experienced the same fearful storms
That Derek Hatfield was to describe 35 years later.
In a classic piece of British understatement....he said
"I admit..... I was frightened for a while....
However, fear does not last. .....I turned in and went to sleep."
He arrived back in England.... In record time
after a total of 226 days at sea
ant the Queen knighted him......... Sir Francis Chichester
Now this is an.......... inspiring story
But it is Alec Rose's story ........which I think is even more inspiring.
In the British class system, Rose, unlike Chichester,
was not of the privileged classes......he struggled to make a living.
He came to Canada in the fifties to do some farming...
Then he returned to England to join the Navy .
In the Merchant Navy convoys.... in WW II
He broke down under the strain ....and he was sent home
His marriage broke up......... he went bankrupt,
He subsisted as a market gardener and a fruit seller
But.... through all of this ....He constantly dreamed .....
of sailing the world's oceans......
He lived on his boat.....and he sailed across the Atlantic.... a number of times.
And in 1966 When he learned of Chichester's plans
He got the idea that he would challenge Chichester to an around the world race
He had a smaller, slower boat ......the 20 year old Lively Lady
She was only 37 feet long
There was talk of sponsoring Rose in a bigger vessel
to make a real race of it...... but Rose loved his Lively Lady
He said....."I did not want to be sponsored.
I wanted to be Captain of my own ship..... and beholden to no one.".
He started out about one month before Chichester.... in Aug 1966
But ...........out in the English Channel
his boat was run down..... by a tanker
And he was forced to turn back...to make repairs
He was not able to depart again... until the following May 1967 ,
By which time Chichester was just finishing .....his own circumnavigation.
On Rose's successful return home later that year ..........after 3.. days at sea
he too.... was knighted........ Sir Alec Rose.
These individuals ........all had big dreams......
and it is inspiring..... to realize
That they were able to achieve .......what they had set out to do.
Derek Hatfield...... has a dream.
He wants to..... win........the next Five Oceans Around the World race.
He is continuing a tradition..... that embodies dreams and courage
I ask you to be aware of this man .....and his dream
It will give you... courage..... in the pursuit of your own ideas
You can follow his progress at his web site , Spirit of Canada.org
Mr. Chairman