Dorothy is a 1968 Hinckley Pilot 35 from Southwest Harbor, Maine. My partner and I entered her into the 2030 Golden Globe Race- a solo, non-stop, unassisted, around the world sailboat race using technology prior to 1969. No GPS, no radar, no outside assistance. While both of us already entered into the race it is still to be decided which one of us will take Dorothy on this ride alone and if we will even make it to the start line in the first place! 😄
The dream is to arrive at the start line in Les Sables d'Olonne France in 2030 fully prepared as skilled sailors ready to take on the technical challenges of the Golden Globe Race. Our hope is to raise enough funds for this campaign to ready Dorothy and ourselves to the standards necessary to survive the punishing reality of the Southern Ocean, Cape Horn, and the 30,000 nautical miles in-between. To ground such a glamorous dream to reality my partner and I hatched the plan to sail for an lgbt+ youth homelessness non-profit which promises to provide queer youth with stable homes absent of the displacement, loneliness, and ostracization our community is all too familiar with. The two of us are still COMPLETE BEGINNERS and I personally aim to immerse myself in becoming the best sailor I can possibly be. Along the way we will document this journey of becoming able pilots of the sea by sharing our story online and with our local communities here in the Pacific Northwest through the lens of lgbtqia+ youth homelessness while on and off the water. We've sold our house and have already committed a large sum of our savings to this project but still need lots of community support to make this dream of ours a reality 💟
Spotting the link to this forum got me so excited🙂 For many years and during my childhood in the midwest I found myself in a community that felt hostile and through my own guilt and shame resorted to extremes like eating from the trash because I didn't feel like I had any right to accept food from the community I grew up in. While on the surface that's obviously absurd, though the lens of my perceived and sometimes very real prejudice I felt it was entirely justified. Fucked up, yes, but it goes to show how twisted a narrative your mind creates for itself when those in power wish you to be dead. There's this deep feeling in my gut that tells me a future of trans in maritime defiantly exists. Having this opperutunity myself through sailing, I was recently asked to work as secretary for SEASTR+, a non-profit based in the PNW for women+ in sailing and maritime- a role I'm only just beginning to get a handle on. So we're definitely out there, and In my limited experience there's a plethora of empowering trans maritime stories just waiting to be told!! Hopefully, by sharing these stories we can all work together to help illuminate trans voices in maritime- strengthening ourselves and our community against a world that continues to wage a war against our very existence. Alongside other displaced and marginalized communities it's important to remind ourselves just how beautiful we all are and know that as an oppressed people we hold immense power to shape the world in-order to challenge the old structures of power. 🏳️⚧️✊
