A team of New Zealanders and Australians are well into planning a world record personal watercraft record attempt by riding from London to Sydney to Auckland leaving London on 1st August 2010. The epic journey, named THE ULTIMATE RIDE, is being undertaken to raise awareness of healthy living and cancer prevention and to raise 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 on 1st August 2010. After crossing the English Channel, Jeremy and his co-riders 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 Egypt. Once through the Suez Canal the journey will take them to India via the Red Sea and Indian Ocean before travelling onto Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, then down the Indonesian Archipelago to Darwin in Northern Australia. After rounding Cape York they will navigate down the eastern seaboard via the Great Barrier Reef and Tasman Sea to arrive in Sydney mid November 2010.They will then set off for Auckland via Fiordland and the East Coast of New Zealand and plan to arrive in Auckland at the end of November. The team will be working with cancer organisations in each country they pass through to help raise the profile of the event and its goals. The 32,000km ride will break the current personal water craft distance record of 18,400km by over 13,000km. 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. 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 1st August 2010 for The Ultimate Ride from London to Auckland. In terms of meeting the objective of raising global awareness of cancer there isnt 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. Planning is now well advanced. The organisers have set up a trust and are seeking further 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. Naming rights for the event and for the personal watercraft are still available. The website www.london-sydney.org has also been launched and will be used to track the progress of the journey both prior to and post the event.
