Chinese Voyage is a non-profit sailing organization based in China. In July 2008, we planned to sail eastbound to America on a 16-meter reconstructed Chinese junk. A Chinese junk is the name for a common type of sailing vessel used the China Seas.The Princess Taiping was a replica of a Ming Dynasty Chinese junk built for a sailing trip from China to the United States and back. The ship sank approximately 42 nautical miles from its final destination on Saturday, 25th of April 2009. If successful, it would have been the first ship of its kind known to have done so (an earlier Junk had been sailed to San Francisco but none had ever made the more difficult return journey to China)The ship was commissioned by 61-year-old Liu Ningsheng ("Nelson Liu"), possibly the first Taiwanese person to ever circle the earth in a yacht, to demonstrate the plausibility of the theory that the Chinese explored the American West Coast decades before the voyages of Christopher Columbus. The ship was a replica of a war ships in the navies of Zheng He and Koxinga. It was 54 feet long and 45 feet wide. Thirty craftsmen from Fuzhou, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou spent six years building the ship, without nuts and bolts, using traditional Chinese shipbuilding techniques. It was entirely wind-powered, with three cotton sails. The ship was launched in June, 2008 from Xiamen, in the People's Republic of China. It set off on June 26 from Keelung, Taiwan, with Liu as skipper. It made 17,000 miles of its trip, stopping in California, Hawaii, and Japan, among other places, before it was rammed by the Champion Express, a 650-foot Liberian-flagged Norwegian chemical tanker, near the Su Ao Harbor in northeastern Taiwan, 20–30 miles from the end of its voyage back in Keelung.

Yacht Racing Academy (YRA) provides a fantastic opportunity to bring young people forward into the racing world. Sailing is a marvellous sport, it both brings people together and provides the opportunity for healthy competition, helping to give young people a goal in life.The YRA combines the team's well-known racing yacht Bear of Britain and Chernitkeeff2 with UKSA's modern facilities. Candidates will visit the UKSA in April for a two-week training programme to participate in a period of intense physical training with ex-Royal Marine Commando Instructors. The exercise aims are not only physical but are designed to increase 'esprit de corps', develop teambuilding and to find out if the candidates have what it takes to become a first class racing sailor.The YRA project was started by Islander and yachting legend Kit Hobday, who passed away in June of 2006, after losing his long-running battle against prostatic cancer of the spine.Yacht Details:Chernikeeff2 – GBR Yacht Racing AcademyBear of Britain – Yacht Racing Academy / Team Bear