One of our Girlguiding IW members has the honour of performing the first firing of the gun that signals the start of this year’s J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.
On the 27th June, the day before celebrating her 18th birthday, the Sip-Puff sailor Natasha Lambert, a member of Girlguiding IW’s Vectis Senior Section, BP Award holder and an Honorary Member of the Island Sailing Club, will perform the honours. In HM The Queen’s Birthday Honours Natasha was awarded a BEM.
Natasha has athertoid cerebral palsy that affects her limbs and speech. As she herself describes it “the messages from my brain don’t go to the muscles I need them too and kind of get lost along the way, which is really frustrating! So I need help 24/7 with all sorts of things.”
She started sailing a few years ago and loved it from the start and has undertaken and achieved an extraordinary amount of personal goals. During 2010 and 2011 she sailed Miss Isle, her Artemis 20,, but she was striving for more control, more space for electronics and the ability to sail further afield. The team purchased a Mini Transat boat and converted her to become Miss Isle Too. The boat was completed in August 2012 to allow Tash to take full control of the helm and sails.
Her current objective is to set up the Miss Isle School of Sip-Puff Sailing to help others learn to Sip-Puff Sail. To help her reach her goal, Tash has recently completed her latest mission called ‘Capital Venture’, setting out from Cowes, back in her Artemis 20, sailing east along the coast past Dover and around, up the Thames and into the city of London. She then walked the square mile and collected cheques from some city banks.
To round off the Race weekend in style, the Isand Sailing Club is equally delighted to announce that Helena Lucas MBE will present the prizes at the ISC’s Prizegiving held at their Clubhouse in Cowes at midday on Sunday 28th June. A total of 78 fantastic prizes, many of them with a superb history attached to them, are handed out including the most famous of all, the Gold Roman Bowl. Prize winners also receive the coverted bottle of Old Pulteney Whisky from one of the sub-sponors of the race.