Toronto Boat Show

Speaking at the Toronto Boat Show

Greg Nicoll from Sail-World.com

Brian Chapman from UK Halsey's Toronto Loft

I arrived in Toronto on Thursday after a 4 hour flight over from LA. As we were coming in for the landing, I could see the whole city was covered in snow - a bit different than the 80 degree weather I had boarded the plane with in LA. A quick cab ride through the frozen streets of Toronto and I arrived at the hotel.

Now I turned 19 recently and seeing the the drinking age in Candida is 19, I was looking forward to hitting up the hotel bar. Unfortunately, the bar was closed by the time I made it down. Also, the girl at the desk told me that the price of a beer at their bar was about $12 US!

The next morning was an early one and with the 3 hour time difference, waking up at 6am turned to 3am California time. I woke up quickly though and went outside into the below freezing weather. The boat show was huge and all inside which was awesome. I can't see how anyone would want to be outside in the freezing city.

Got to the show and did a few interviews and then downtown for a couple in-studio things with CBC, then back to the show for a speech at 4:00. By the time I got back to the show, it was packed with 15,000 to 20,000 people.

Met up with the coordinator of the show, Ken and we got all my slideshow equipment set up. We barely got it going in time. It turns out that my computer was on the edge of crashing with some virus but managed to get it together just in time and the room filled up.

I was introduced by Greg Nicoll from Sail-World.com ( http://sail-world.com/index.cfm?Nid=79225&refre=y&ntid=0&rid=4 article by sailworld.com on my speech) and gave my speech.

It went over well. I managed to keep the crowd laughing and interested through the whole thing. That evening I went out with my friends/sponsors from Quickline (http://www.quickline.us) We have known Randy Boelsem and his family from way back when I was a kid on the beach at Emerald Bay, Catalina Island. I think I used to throw rocks at Randy's daughter! Randy's company, Quickline, sponsored my new technology, light-weight anchor and some other equipment. We hit the town that evening and had great time.

The next day it was off to the show for a speech. It had snowed during the night and all the traffic was slowed. It was Saturday and the show was packed. I did my speech and there was standing room only. After the speech I had to rush over to the airport to catch my flight which ended up getting delayed 3 hours.

Back home in California now and prepping for the Chicago Boat Show January 12-16th and more snow.

Cheers,

Zac

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had an awesome holiday season. Over here at the Sunderland camp its been good; crazy as always. My good buddy Will came back from Wheaton College for Christmas and stayed with us for a week. It was great to see him and take a break from school for a few weeks. I'll be staying with Will in February when I am in Chicago for the Chicago Boat Show.

Just getting ready to head out to Toronto for the Toronto International Boat Show. I'm going to be doing a couple of presentations on my circumnavigation. I haven't been there since I was 4 so I'm looking forward to it, although from what I hear, its buried in snow and freezing this time of year. I'll will keep you posted on that one while I'm there.

So with the the start of the new year it is pretty likely we all have some resolutions. I've got a couple of goals myself. The first is to get my captain's license and the second is to be off on another adventure.

Here is the link for the Toronto International Boat Show. I will be there the 13-16th. Hope to see you there! http://www.torontoboatshow.com/

Cheers,

Zac