September 18, 2008

Dear Sir,

As we look forward to the arrival next year of a fleet of Tall Ships from many of the nations of the world who will be participating in the celebration of Bermuda's 400th anniversary of permanent settlement, Tall Ships Bermuda Limited wishes to thank your newspaper for your continuing interest and support in keeping the public informed of this magnificent initiative!

Thanks also to your reporter, Tauria Raynor for the coverage she provided of my address to the Hamilton Rotary Luncheon on Tuesday. However, I must point out that your headline, "Volunteers sought on slots on Spirit of Bermuda in next year's Tall Ships Races" that appeared in Wednesday's Royal Gazette, was a bit misleading and gives the impression that we will only be placing our young people on this one Tall Ship — not so. Our goal is to place as many young people from Bermuda on as many of these Tall Ships from different nations as we can as well as supporting our own Tall Ship.

The Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009 is a trans-Atlantic race involving seven international ports (Vigo; Tenerife; Bermuda; Charleston, South Carolina; Boston; Halifax and Belfast, Northern Ireland) is being organised by Sail Training International and American Sail Training Association. As a member of Sail Training International, Sail Training Bermuda Limited is responsible for Bermuda being one of the official host ports, and we are managing Bermuda's participation in the event through Tall Ships Bermuda Limited.

As promoters of Sail Training and the benefits that young people gain from the experience, Tall Ships Bermuda is indeed pleased that for the first time, Bermuda will have its own Tall Ship participating in the race where Bermuda is an official port. As indicated, the Spirit of Bermuda, and several international Tall Ships, have already registered for various legs of the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009. In the end we are hopeful for a fleet in excess of 50 sail training vessels. The Spirit of Bermuda's participation will allow even more young Bermudians than ever before to experience a sail training adventure during a Tall Ships race.

However, we want to point out that as the Tall Ships Bermuda ports committee is still actively recruiting more international ships, we will be placing Bermuda sail trainees on international ships that offer us berths. The Spirit of Bermuda will feature primarily Bermuda crew and trainees while the other Tall Ships will allow our young people the opportunity of an 'international' experience shared with young people of various nationalities from various foreign countries.

The success of Bermuda's Tall Ships Festival, 11-15 June 2009 will indeed depend on fund-raising, financial sponsorship, as well as trainee recruitment and community volunteers and we encourage everyone who is interested to go to our website www.tallshipsbermuda.com where they learn more about the event and can sign up as sail trainees and volunteers. Tall Ships Bermuda Limited is grateful to the Government of Bermuda, the Bank of Bermuda Foundation, The Bank of Bermuda Limited — HSBC, the Corporation of Hamilton and others who are already supporting this event.

Let me again emphasise that this event is about providing Bermuda's young people with a life-changing opportunity of self-discovery and to experience international understanding and friendship through sail training. We encourage all interested young people — in particular, those who have never experienced a sail training adventure, and those who don't have any prior sailing experience, to consider signing up for an adventure of a lifetime.

Bermuda's history is inextricably tied to the sea and Tall Ships represent one of the constant features between our past and our future. Over the next several months, the community will continue to hear much about this exciting event that we hope will be long remembered as the signature event of our 400th Anniversary celebrations in the summer of 2009!

JOHN WADSON

Chairman, Tall Ships Bermuda Limited