FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ultimate world record ride from London to Sydney set to raise funds for
cancer research
A group of New Zealanders are well into planning a world record
personal watercraft record attempt by riding from London to Sydney late 2010.
The epic journey, named THE ULTIMATE RIDE, is being undertaken to raise
awareness of and funds for cancer research.
The brainchild of New Zealand born Australian and Qantas 747 captain, Jeremy
Burfoot, The Ultimate Ride will set off from the Thames River in London
1st August 2010. After crossing the English Channel, Jeremy and another rider will enter the Rhine at Rotterdam and travel east
until they join the Danube and spill out into the Black Sea before
travelling across the Mediterranean to Suez.
Once through the canal the journey will take them to India via the Red Sea
and Indian Ocean before travelling onto Singapore, then down the Indonesian
Archipelago to Darwin in Northern Australia. A turn to the east and they
navigate down the eastern seaboard via the Great Barrier Reef and Tasman
Sea to arrive in Sydney sometime in November 2010.
The 28,000km ride will break the current personal water craft distance
record of 18,400km by over 9,000km.
Burfoot’s reason for such an epic journey is based on his own dice with
cancer and his desire to ensure funds are put into researching the one
disease that both the developed and developing world are struggling to
combat. His co-rider on the journey, Phil Briars, is only too aware of the
dangers of cancer in his role with the New Zealand Cancer Society.
In February 2006 Burfoot and a fellow Australian took their personal
watercraft on a 5,000km, 19 day “warm up and shake down” ride around New
Zealand. This was the first ever circumnavigation of New Zealand on personal
watercraft and the resulting publicity and buy-in by a number of organisations,
including the Cancer Society, saw Jeremy set a date of August 2010 for the
Ultimate Ride from London to Sydney.
In terms of meeting the objective of raising global awareness of cancer
there isn’t a better route available, nor a better opportunity for sponsors
to gain the maximum exposure for their product or service in these markets,
and at costs that are many millions of dollars below what they would have to
pay to purchase similar coverage.
At this stage of the planning the organisers are setting up a trust and are
seeking sponsors to assist them with the journey as well as raising a voice
in the international media on the need to raise funds for cancer research.
The website www.london-sydney.com
has also been launched and will be used to track the progress of the journey both
prior to and post the event.