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| A Home, sweet home: Round the world solo sailor Alan Paris is greeted by Premier Jennifer Smith after arriving back in Bermuda yesterday. His boat, BTC Velocity, will soon return to be put on display at the BUEI. |
Plans are underway for Paris to sail the boat from its berth in Newport, Rhode Island, back to Bermuda early next month and put it on show at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) for as long as six months.
After that it is hoped to be left on display at a permanent location.
It was a week ago on Sunday that the 38-year-old completed his epic 28,000 mile adventure in the single-handed Around Alone Race, becoming the first Bermudian to complete a solo circumnavigation.
Paris remained in Newport until Saturday evening's prize presentation before flying home with wife Becky and two-year-old son Tucker yesterday when he was met at the airport by Premier Jennifer Smith.
"It's lovely to be home," he told The Royal Gazette . "It's a long time to be away. I left on August 15 last year – that's about nine months ago. You don't often leave the place where you live for nine months. So, yes, I'm happy to be back."
Paris takes up the post of BUEI director on May 27 and among his immediate priorities will be to ensure the safe arrival of BTC Velocity , which was the smallest of the 13 entries which set off last September at the beginning of the Around Alone.
Three boats failed to finish the race and another, Derek Hatfield's Spirit of Canada , is still at sea after suffering severe damage during a storm off the notorious Cape Horn.
While plans for the exhibition have not been finalised, with a fund-raising drive still to be launched, Paris said he hoped to return to Newport and set sail for Bermuda on June 9 with the aim of arriving on Saturday, June 14.
"The goal is to bring the boat back to the Island on that date and make it an exhibit at the BUEI, although that probably wouldn't be its permanent home," he said.
Expected to accompany Paris on board is all-round local sportsman Jim Butterfield, a BUEI trustee who also attended Saturday's prizegiving.
"Jim's very interested in doing it," added Paris. "And it would be lovely to have him on board. I've done enough solo sailing . . . contrary to popular belief I do like to sail with people."
Butterfield and BUEI chairman Michael Collier are the two key figures behind the fund-raising drive which they hope will secure BTC Velocity a permanent home on the Island.
"A number of Bermudians have said that it would be really a shame to see Alan sell her on the international market and the boat leave local waters," said Collier yesterday. "There are interested Bermudians and others who want her back here. And I have said, as chairman of the BUEI, that we would like to have her on display in an appropriate rack whereby she can be seen by everybody for a period of up to six months.
"After that we've got ideas to where we think she should go.
"We want her to remain permanently in Bermuda and we want her to remain permanently as an exhibit.
"Jim and I, like many others, feel that it's going to be a helluva long time before another Bermudian achieves what Alan has.
"I had the pleasure of going up on Saturday night for the prizegiving along with Paget Wharton, deputy chairman of the BUEI and Jim, and it was a very proud moment for us to hear Sir Robin Knox Johnston talk about all those who have attempted and those have perished at sea trying to accomplish what Alan has.
"He was very well represented. On a per capita basis we probably had more Bermuda residents there than any other country . . . it was a very moving moment and a very proud man standing on that podium, believe me."
Collier stressed that fund-raising for the project would not be handled by the BUEI but by private individuals.
"We'll be talking to a number of people about raising money," said Collier. "It's not BUEI fund-raising, it's a private thing and the primary people doing it are myself and Jim Butterfield.
"There's a group of interested people on the Island who would like to have her back here. We had a long meeting with Alan on Saturday night. At that point we said we would like the boat to come back to Bermuda because we just don't want her to go somewhere and be forgotten.
"We've had 16 schools from Bermuda following him, we've had a school from England and a school from New Jersey and I think Alan deserves enormous credit for what he has done. And I think what he has done it in will become a showpiece for life.
"She's not going to be in the water sailing around. That's not the intent. We do have an idea where we would like to see her go in the long term."
In the meantime, BTC Velocity will be taken out of the water in Newport and her keel checked for possible damage following a collision with two whales at the beginning of the final leg of Around Alone off Salvador in Brazil.
"We want to make sure she's ok for the return journey to Bermuda," added Collier. "We'd hate like hell for him to come back and something happen on the way."
