Annapolis

I landed in Annapolis Maryland about an hour before the United States Sail Boat Show was to open. This is the biggest in sail boat show in America.

Scott, a coordinator who had arranged a couple of speeches for me to do while I was in town, picked me up from the airport. At the show, it was busy and all the vendors were trying to get the last things set up. I found the Sailology booth where I was gonna to be stationed. Sailoligy had invited me to be at their booth when we did the Long Beach Boat Show last summer. (Sailology is the company that sponsored me with the Spot locator beacon that I used in the Atlantic when I had no other electronics to communicate.) Sailology recently invented an electric winch handle and it was one of the new technologies at the show. Check out their web site at http://sailology.com/

The first day of the show was kind of slow just getting stuff set up and talking to the steady flow of people passing by. I was at the Sailology booth with Marty, the inventor of the WinchRite (bad ass electric winch handle), and Sven, one of the owners of the company, both fun, cool guys and together we went thru the next couple days of talking to and meeting thousands of people. I heard from someone at the show that 50,000 people go each year. I’m not sure if that’s true but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how many there were.

I did two speeches at the UK Allen sail loft right across the street from the show.

Scott Allen at the UK Allen sail loft in Annapolis

Scott Allen, the owner, is a great guy and it was good of him to let us turn his loft into a conference room for a few days. Scott and Judy who had coordinated the speeches had everything all set up.

The crowd built everyday. Saturday was the busiest day and afterwards we were off for an evening of celebration. Sailology was doing quite well at this show. The WinchRite cordless winch handle really is an awesome product and everyone at the show wanted to give it a try on the demo winches.

By Sunday we were happy for a bit of a slow morning with not a whole lot of people. I did a speech Sunday night, packed up all my stuff from the booth, said my goodbyes and made plans to see Marty and Sven at the Chicago Boat Show at the end of January. I was off flying back to Cali at 6:30am Monday morning, landed and drove straight to school right on time.

I'll be speaking at the Adventurers Club on October 30^th which should be cool. Can't wait - those guys are the greatest of the greatest of adventurers.

Cheers

Zac

The Past Few Weeks

So over the past few weeks I've been a bit busy. I did all the SoCal boat shows; San Diego, Long Beach and Ventura. Also the editing on part 2 of Intrepid: The Zac Sunderland Story is in progress. I've been spending my time between school, working on Intrepid and in the editing studios with the current editor on the project Chris.

As far as school goes, I’ve been working hard at it, trying to get teachers to let me take tests earlier or later as I seem to always be out of town during those classes.

A couple of weeks ago, I went up to Big Bear Mountain and met Jordan Romero and his family. Jordan is the youngest person to climb Mount Everest. He did it when he was only 13! It was really cool to meet him and his family who also are extreme sports athletes and all around adventurers. Also at Jordan’s late homecoming bash I met Joey Machado, the youngest guy to bike across America and his family - so lots of adventure stories there.

So looks like winter is starting up here in Cali and I can’t wait for the snow to hit the mountains. My buddy Taylor and I got hooked on snowboarding last winter and both have season passes at Mountain High where we will pretty much live on the mountain when we’re not in school. At the moment I am in Charlotte, North Carolina on a layover heading to Annapolis for the United States Boat Show which is supposed to be the biggest in the world. Well, the plane is boarding now so gotta run but the boat show opens up today (Thursday) so it should be a red-eyed day - I've been flying all night.

Cheers,
Zac