DARE TO DREAM An account of Ian Thomson’s life where he dares to dream and he chases those dreams. He now holds a world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of Australia and has plans to chase more records in coming years. He is also passionate about the marine environment and works hard to protect it. I ask you one favour. This eBook is about raising funds for Ocean Crusaders. Please do not pass it on to friends. Please purchase a new copy for each friend or get them to purchase it. We need funds to keep our campaign going. It is cheap to allow this to happen. Ian Thomson Founder: Ocean Crusaders (Formerly Save Our Seas Australia Pty Ltd) Funds from the sale of this book go directly to Ocean Crusaders to continue their campaign to raise awareness of the damage plastic bags and plastics do to the environment First published September 2010 - Republished December 2012 © Ocean Crusaders Pty Ltd 2012 All rights reserved. Apart from use permitted under the Copyright Act of 1968 and its amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means whatsoever without prior permissions in writing from the publisher. DARE TO DREAM This book is dedicated to my mother Pauline Salter and my pop Sam Salter Without their support I would not be where I am today Introduction When Ian Thomson set himself the goal of becoming the fastest person to sail solo non-stop around Australia he decided to make a statement about a serious problem he had encountered in the world’s oceans. Ian started his love affair with the sea on a windsurfer as a teenager at Balnarring in Victoria. Over the next 20 years he worked his way up in the windsurfing world and moved on to ocean yacht racing. He became a qualified commercial yacht skipper after sailing in Hawaii, Fiji and Australia and now takes the helm of some of the country’s fastest maxi yachts and large cruising catamarans in Queensland’s magnificent Whitsundays. He is a sought after helmsman on racing yachts and has competed in most of Australia’s major ocean races. He has a divisional win in the tough Sydney to Hobart race to his credit. During the course of his sailing and his work Ian became aware of the shocking and unnecessary damage the ‘convenient’ plastic shopping bag is causing the ocean environment and its wildlife. He is particularly disturbed by the death of turtles courtesy of discarded plastic bags. In June 2010 Ian sailed his 12 metre yacht Save Our Seas Ocean Racing back into Airlie Beach after a testing 6536 nautical mile voyage around Australia that took 42 days, 5 hours, 31 minutes, 55 seconds beating the previous record by 26 days. He had achieved his dream of becoming the fastest solo circumnavigator of Australia. Ian used the voyage to launch his campaign to reduce the use of plastic bags. On his return he established Ocean Crusaders and set himself other goals in his pursuit of a world free of plastic bags. He has three aims in his campaign: to raise awareness, promote alternatives and to take action to achieve this dream. Ian Thomson’s journey from a broken home to world record holder is inspirational and motivating and his story of chasing dreams and sailing the oceans is guaranteed to inspire and motivate others to chase and achieve their own dreams. -- Julian Burgess, Editor, September 2010 New World Record for Fastest Solo Circumnavigation of Australia 42 Days : 5 Hours : 31 Minutes : 55 Seconds This book was written to inspire people to create dreams and to chase them. I encourage you to take your time reading this book. I don’t envisage you’ll read it cover to cover in one go but maybe use it to draw inspiration for your dreams. The chapters are short and after each chapter there is a poem or verse about dreams or not giving up. If you read a chapter before you go to bed and then the verse after it you’ll go to sleep with the thought of chasing your dreams. I hope you will find the book inspirational and I hope you can chase your dreams, after all a world without dreams is a world without life. Ian Thomson, Airlie Beach September, 2010 Dare to Dream The dictionary says a dare is a risky challenge that one person suggests to another to try to get them to prove their courage. It can also mean to confront bravely. A dream or goal is a projected state of affairs that a person or a system plans or intends to achieve – a personal or organizational desired end-point in some sort of assumed development. The title of this book Dare to Dream came to me on the first day of my single-handed sailing voyage around Australia in May 2010. Breaking the record for this journey had become my dream and 42 days later I was able to claim the record. Had I not dared to dream, I would not have done what I did and this book would not exist. A Famous Speech When I think of famous motivational speeches there is one that stands out for me. It was made well before my time but the words still ring loud for me. It was 28 August 1963 and the speech was made at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Of course it was the famous speech made by Martin Luther King Jr entitled “I have a dream”. He had a dream and he fought hard for his dream. He had struggles all the way through and he knew there were people who were so threatened by his dream that they were prepared to kill him yet he pushed hard and fought through the barriers. He made a massive difference to the lives of African Americans and I believe started the breakdown in racial vilification. He had the courage to stand tall. More than 40 years after he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, his dream continues to provide inspiration to people all over the world. He had a dream. Do you have a dream? The following stories are of people who have lived their dreams. Being a sailor, I have focused on some other sailors, however it begins with someone we all know about, Abraham Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln dream was to become President of the United States of America. Most people know the Abraham Lincoln story. Who can forget learning about him at school. While we all know he reached his goal of becoming President not everyone knows the road he undertook to achieve his dream. In 1816 his family was forced out of their home after a dispute over the ownership of their farm and Abraham went out to work to help support them. He was seven years old at the time. In 1818 his mother died. He was only nine years old. He tried to set up his own business when he was 22 years old but this failed. The following year he stood for election to the Illinois General Assembly and was defeated. He lost his job and was unable to get into law school. In 1833 he was declared bankrupt. He spent the next 17 years of his life paying back the money he had borrowed from friends to start his business. But he was elected to the Illinois legislature in 1834, taught himself law and by 1837 had been admitted to the US bar. He became engaged to his sweetheart Anne Rutledge in 1835 but she died suddenly of typhoid and his heart was broken. The following year he had a nervous breakdown and spent six months in bed. In 1838 he was unsuccessful in his attempt to become the Speaker of the state legislature but each time he was defeated he would step forward even though the setbacks kept coming. He made unsuccessful bids for a seat in the US Congress but did serve for two years from 1847. He refused to give up and continued his interest in politics making an unsuccessful bid for the Republican vice-presidential nomination. Such defeats can beat lesser men and women but Abraham Lincoln continued to stride forward. In 1858 he was once again defeated for the Senate. But in 1860, at the age of 51, the man who had overcome all these struggles was elected as the 16th President of the United States of America. It took Abraham Lincoln, one of the world’s greatest men, some 30 years to achieve his dream. Yes it was a big dream but he took it step by step. Although he faced countless obstacles, he never gave up and he never quit. Great quotations from Abraham Lincoln. The sense of obligation to continue is present in all of us. A duty to strive is the duty of us all. I felt a call to that duty. The path was worn and slippery. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other out of the way, but I recovered and said to myself, it’s a slip and not a fall. Believe In Your Dream Do you sometimes find it hard to believe that you can really make your dreams a reality? If so, consider this. We live in a world of dreams. Every man-made item around you at this very moment began as a thought, an idea or a dream in the mind of an individual. The computer on your desk, your mobile phone, your car and countless other items that you use each day are all the result of someone’s ‘dream come true’.