Team Circe: PacCup Fundraising

Help Captain Tony Bourque and Crew on Team Circe in facing the challenge of sailing across an open ocean!!

We have worked long and hard to make this major undertaking a reality, but now are asking for your help! Join our team and make a donation to help us get to the start line! Able to help?

Here’s how:

Cash/Credit/Debit Donations - Click the "Contribute" button in the upper right!

Captain Tony Bourque and our crew of six close “FRamily” (friends and family) members, Patch, Danny, Greg, Jamie, Jake and Edie, have entered their boat, Circe, in this year's Pacific Cup (PacCup) race from San Francisco, CA to Kaneohe, HI. We are all looking forward to this incredible challenge of crossing the Pacific Ocean. For some of us this will be the culmination of years of preparing and planning.

However, in the final months of preparation, some significant needed repairs were uncovered that had to be addressed. This drove us way over our budget and now we find ourselves struggling to get across the start line in July! Between the boat repairs and the significant 14 page list of safety equipment required for the race, we are running short of funds. That being said, we are determined to embark on this significant test of endurance, courage and skill, and hope our community will join and support us in this journey.

You will be able to follow our progress during the two week trip to Hawaii via a GPS tracker that will allow you to follow all the boats in the race. And we will publish lots of updates in our prep leading up to the race and will do our best to send updates and the occasional photo via satellite during the crossing.

Follow us here on FaceBook - https://www.facebook.com/TeamCirce20

About the race:

The 2022 PacCup starts the week of July 4, 2022; and most racers finish in ten to fourteen days. Ocean racing between California and Hawaii has a long and storied history. This exciting and beautiful passage has been luring intrepid racers for over a century. Although the PacCup is the youngest member of an elite club of races, it is certainly not the least challenging.

Circe has been entered in the Family Cruising division, and we anticipate arriving in Kaneohe, Oahu, around July 18th. Captain Tony and First Mate, Danny Mone, and two additional sailors will bring her back on a +/- seventeen day return.

Circe - our sailboat:

Preparing a large sailing vessel for an open ocean race is expensive. Circe is a Freedom 40/40 model cruiser sailboat built in 1997. She’s a 40’ cat-sloop, and one of fewer than 40 built by the Freedom company of Rhode Island.

It is typical for a boat of her age to require significant upgrades before making an ocean crossing in order to assure her seaworthiness and to meet the strict safety requirements set by the PacCup governing body. For example, our team (working with Berkeley Marine Center) removed Circe’s 62’ mast. The crew then sanded and sanded and sanded again for multiple weekends removing the old paint to inspect for any hidden damage. We then replaced all the electrical wiring in the mast and all navigation lights, the VHF radio antenna, and navigation instruments at the top of the mast. We inspected all mast hardware, and replaced if worn. Then the mast got a new paint job. Her keel was inspected and fortified, as was the place where the mast sits in the boat (the mast step). We still have a lot to do, such as building additional berths inside for the crew, finishing satellite communication installation, installation of solar power to keep our batteries charged (everything runs off the batteries) and installing radar. Our team will be working hard to complete all this work before our July 4th departure. Before leaving, the boat and all of our gear must be inspected in order to be given the green light to participate in the race.

We are creating this appeal to ask for whatever support you can provide. No donation is too small.

Follow our progress here: https://www.facebook.com/TeamCirce20

Many thanks for your support!