Congratualtions Laura Dekker!

A big congratulations to Laura Dekker who just completed her solo circumnavigation in St Martin, Caribbean. A job well done!

Cheers,

Zac

Intrepid: The Zac Sunderland Story Part 2

Documentary DVD - Part 2 - Finished and Available

Intrepid: The Zac Sunderland Story Part 2 is now available at www.zacsunderland.com. Thanks for your patience. We think that you will agree that Part 2 was worth the wait!

Part 2 covers leaving Darwin crossing the Indian Ocean with pirate scares, major technical issues and more kindness of strangers. Then Zac hits Mauritius, South Africa, the remote island of St Helena, crosses the Atlantic Ocean, Carribean Ocean, passes through the Panama Canal back to the Pacific Ocean to a hero's welcome.

On top of all this adventure is an exclusive interview with legendary sailor Robin Lee Graham. Graham completed his own solo circumnavigation in 1970 aboard his sailboat Dove. Graham inspired many people, including Zac. Here his thoughts on his own circumnavigation and on Zac's attempt 43 years later.

Running time is 1:08:00

Summer Days

A great day on the water - Malibu.

Summer is passing by quickly over here with finishing off the last tedious paperwork for my captain's license and getting Intrepid back to mint condition being the focus of most days. I have also been getting organized to go to all the fall boat shows and running around doing speeches and a few yacht deliveries.

The summer seems like it flew by. Intrepid is looking really good now so I've decided to start doing a few charters and sailing lessons on her. If you are interested you can contact me through the contact page on my web site at www.zacsunderland.com. Hopefully I'll get some people into sailing and the adventure that always follows. BTW, my web site is being updated and we should have the changes up in the next week or so.

Latitudes and Attitudes sailing magazine and web site has asked me to write for them monthly. Anybody have any favorite stories from my trip or other sailing adventures, let me know which one it is and if I've got some good pics of it I'll rewrite the experience and it will be in the mag.

Anyway, hope everyone is having an awesome summer.

Cheers,

Zac

Marinafest - Marina del rey Boat Show

Abby and I will be at the Marinafest Baot Show in Marina del Rey with Intrepid all weekend. Hours of the show are Saturday from 10-6 and Sunday 11-5. Check out the Marinafest web site for more information.

Cheers,

Zac

http://www.marinafest.com/index.cfm

Sails and Tales

So lots going on here. I recently spent the three weeks and did my captain’s license course and test. It was 8 hour days in class then nights full of homework but it worked out well. My buddy Adam from Long Beach came up and did the course with me and together we managed to find study techniques that got us up to the top of the class.

Towards the middle of the course, Adam and I were in Venice Beach and he decided to by a taser for his girlfriend. Fifteen minutes later we were on my boat getting ready to test it out. The thing felt like a snake bite and getting punched at the same time but just for a second. After that we found we were able to study much better and stay awake hours longer (do not try this at home)!

After the 3 weeks of class, it was time for the exams. The 6-pack tests were much harder than the 100 ton but I lucked out on the chart plotting as I’ve been doing it for as far back as I can remember.

Boat shows!!

I did pretty much all the boat shows in America this year and then 2 in Canada. Among the best was the Vancouver show. I was able to bring an assistant, my good buddy Taylor and I were off.

We landed and ran around the town all night finding out that its one of the best long boarding towns in the world and we romped it as much as we could.

Forty-eight hours later, we were back in California and now have plans to move there some day.

I was also at the Chicago, Miami and Oakland shows which were great times.

I was with my sponsors from Sailology, a really cool marine invention company.

Check them out at sailology.com.

They have recently picked up the distributorship for a company call

ed Smart Kat and we had their west coast debut at the Oakland show.

Deliveries!

My buddy, Adam andI have been doing deliveries lately which has been really great. We have been able to get our boats in ahead of schedule and safe. We make a good team although, we are still trying to figure out a name for when we get hired. We were thinking ‘somet

hing delivery boys’. Let me know any suggestions.

Well, here in California, its been getting warmer and summer is close. I’ve decided to teach people to sail onboard Intrepid during the weeks that I won’t be delivering boats. I’m really excited to start.

Well thats it for now. I’ll be writing up a story of a bash up the coast from Long Beach to San Fran in a couple of day

Fair Winds,

Zac

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