(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - What is it like when you look in every direction and all you see is the deep blue sea and the edge of the earth as it falls away below the horizon?

For some, this is their dearest dream, the salt spray, the creaking ropes, the rolling waves, and the ocean sliding below your sailboat. For fewer still this will be a reality.

This spring, Tim Walker will be one of those few.

This March Tim will head to Qingdao China to join others on Leg Six of the “Clipper Round the World” Race. They will cross the Pacific in a 70-foot yacht for a month, or so, at sea as they race almost 6,000 miles to Seattle.

“My wife Janice saw an article in the Alaska Airlines magazine,” he said, “she knew this was a dream of mine and she encouraged me to apply.” After all, he had been a participant in the local sailboat regattas on Wednesday nights in summer.
But this is serious sailing.

Tim trained in Gosport England to practice sailing in the North Atlantic, “We were training in the southern entrance to the English Channel and in sometimes rough seas; it was exhilarating!

“I was the only one from the United States at that time,” he said, “the others were from all over: the Netherlands, France, Germany, Sweden, and South America.”

A click through teammates on the webpages for the journey shows a veritable United Nations of flags with participants aged from their early 20s to retirement years with backgrounds ranging from bartender to dentist, government service, journalism, and our own Supply Chain Manager.

Tim will be on the UNICEF team, one of eleven ships that average 20-22 people on each of the eight legs of the trip. His leg of the journey is one of the longest.

When he describes tying himself into his berth to sleep, the unstoppable waves, and the possibilities for misadventure, it gives an ordinary person pause.

Not Tim.

“If given an opportunity to cross an ocean, why would you not take it?”

We will all be cheering for you Tim and watching your progress on https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/about/about-the-race

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Stories In The News
Ketchikan, Alaska

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