Page 45 - Yachter Autumn/Winter 2022

LOOKING FORWARD TO AUTUMN/WINTER/SPRING 2022/23
Talks for Autumn 2022 – Spring 2023
Please come and join us at Gins for our Speaker’s Supper evenings. Please see schedule below, together with a brief biography of each of the speakers and the themes of their talks.
Friday 7th October 2022
Geoff Holt
Geoffrey Trevor Marden Holt MBE, DL
is an English sailor from Portsmouth, Hampshire. Paralysed in a swimming accident at the age of eighteen in 1984, he became the first quadriplegic yachtsman to sail solo around Great Britain in 2007 in his 15ft Trimaran dinghy called Freethinker. In 2008 Geoff wrote his autobiography “Walking on Water”.
In December 2009 he set out to cross the Atlantic Ocean on his yacht, The Impossible Dream. He succeeded in this 2,700mile crossing, arriving on 7th January 2010.
Geoff was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.
Friday 11th November 2022
Sandor Vaci
Britain’s Maritime Enterprise
SandorVaci is a Hungarian-born British architect who has lived in London since
the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He is
a scholar of the Chain Bridge over the Danube at Budapest.After his matriculation in Budapest he trained in London and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
His interests are British-Hungarian cultural connections, the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and sharing the public space.
Friday 6th January 2023
Steve O’Donoghue, Member
GINS – How Did I Get Here?
A walk through his maritime career, the mysterious death of the seagull and other maritime misadventures. From a sea cadet to going to war on Canberra to being a customs official on a US base in the Indian Ocean to policing the Olympic sailing in Weymouth.
Friday 10th February 2023
Colin Van Geffen
The Flying Boats of Southampton
(Ships of the Sky)
ColinVan Geffen is an established and well- known artist living and working in the New Forest. He is a local historian and aviation enthusiast. He researches and writes all of his presentations and presentation of the facts is his priority, sometimes exploding myths but always offering an informative, interesting and educational presentation.
Colin specialises in (but is not limited to) aviation, animals and portraits. Examples have been delivered to satisfied customers all around the world, including Portcullis House,Westminster; RAF Aerobatic Team the Red Arrows at RAF Scampton, Lincs;
RAF 101 Sqn HQ at RAF Brize Norton; HMS Ark Royal, Illustrious, Invincible, Southampton, Nottingham; Russian sail training ship Dar Mlodziezy and others.
Friday 10th March 2023
Mike Golding, Honorary Life Member
Mike Golding is an English yachtsman, born in GreatYarmouth and educated at Reading Blue Coat School. He is one of the few yachtsmen to have raced round the world non-stop in both directions. He held the solo record for sailing round the world westabout (the most challenging direction for circumnavigation) between 1994 and 2000.
Mike led the team Group 4 to second place in the British Steel Challenge in 1992- 3. He did one better in the next edition the BT Global Challenge 1996-7, taking first place with a new team of amateur sailors, again on-board Group 4.
He came seventh in the 2000-2001 Vendée Globe solo non-stop round-the- world race having lost seven days to the dismasting of his Open 60, again called Group 4.
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