Lincoln Park resident Jack Jennings is preparing and competing for the adventure of a lifetime. Along with four other American sailors, he was recently chosen out of thousands of American sailors by LaSalle Bank and their parent company ABN AMRO Bank of the Netherlands. He is part of their search around the world for a young crew to comprise Team ABN AMRO for the 2005/2006 Volvo Ocean Race. The challenging race is the longest offshore round-the-world sailing competition. Jennings is now in Lisbon, Portugal, for the final selection process, a boat crew competition, that takes about a week and a half.
An experienced sailor, Jennings has logged approximately 20,000 sailing miles and performed in several high-profile races. He is also a certified diver. Jennings is a Business Management graduate from Ripon College in Wisconsin.
Fierce competition held in Miami, FL, in February, narrowed the American finalists from 16 to five. These five are vying for only two positions on the first-of-its-kind ABN AMRO boat that will feature a total of eight young sailors — two each from Brazil, the Netherlands and the United States, and another two from the "rest of the world." This boat, the second of two being entered by the bank (the other will feature seasoned professional sailors), will also have four experienced sailors on board who have not yet been chosen.
The sailors are being observed and tested on a variety of skills — everything from their expertise on handling all aspects of sailing responsibilities to life-saving techniques to fishing. They each faced both mental and physical challenges. The names of the two American sailors chosen for the Team ABN AMRO will be officially announced on April 1.
The world-wide competition, launched in November 2004 on the bank web site, was created to man one of the two boats the bank will enter into this year's race. This boat will feature an international crew of promising young men and women aged between 21 and 30 who might not otherwise be considered for the Volvo Ocean Race. The bank received more than 5,000 entries from young sailors around the world.
The Volvo Ocean Race will take off from Spain in November 2005 and run its final leg into a Baltic port in the summer of 2006. This is recognized as one of the fastest and most intense races in the world of sailing. |
