Kathy Veel and Bridget Canham are two experienced sailors and the only two-handed female crew from among the 22 entered in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race this year – and on the second smallest boat in the fleet.
Veel, 70 and Canham, in her sixties, were crew on the second and third all-female crews in the race going back to the nineties. Veal has owned small yachts since her twenties and sailed them short-handed for years, including delivering her 9.1 metre Currawong from Melbourne to Sydney in two-handed mode. Canham has kept racing to Hobart.
The pair has been racing in the CYCA’s Blue Water Pointscore in the lead-up and were among half the fleet the finished in the Bird Island Race.
Retired from their jobs as a nurse and a teacher, Veel and Canham they are using the novel approach of crowd funding to meet the expense of the race. They would also love to add a new mainsail to Currawong – the current one is 20 years old and the women would like to be competitive. Any sailmakers out there that would like to help?
If you would like to help make their Christmas wish come true, no amount is too small. Please go to: https://www.gofundme.com/f/2birds2hobart
