Calling All Ships Headed for the S Pacific in 2002

[henkmeuzelaar]

Vanuatu Project Needs Volunteer Vessels to Help Transport Medical and Educational Supplies!Dear Fellow Cruisers,Between June and September 2001 Project MARC (Medical Assistance to Remote Communities) vessels "Flying Angel", a Wharram Narai MK IV catamaran, and "Rivendel II", a Hunter Legend 43 staysail sloop, carried 5 consecutive volunteer teams with a total of 24 doctors, dentists, nurses, teachers and technicians to anchorages in North Ambrym, SE Malekula and The Maskelynes. Here they were able to help some 35 small villages and more than 2,000 patients (representing nearly 5 % of the more remote communities in Vanuatu) using mobile clinic tents as well as abandoned dispensaries and by backpacking supplies to the remote villages while working in the village squares or nakamals. Besides delivering emergency medical care our teams trained 14 local health workers, opened or reactivated 7 aid posts and dispensaries, taught hygiene classes in 4 schools, adopted several primary schools and set up local oversight committees. Detailed reports of this year's activities, ranging from team messages, travel reports and photo albums to operational plans, technical analyses and a team member application form can be found on our <www.terrawatch.org> website by doubleclicking the Discussion Forum icon below the lighthouse and following the active links to the various message, bulletin and story boards. No fewer than 10 cruising vessels, sailing Vanuatu waters under nearly as many different flags, provided generous help this year by transporting crucially needed medical supplies and equipment from Project MARC's Port Vila stockpiles to the various outer island destinations. Several cruisers have vowed to return in 2002, in some instances even changing their original schedules. Nonetheless, the rapid growth of Project MARC (a total of 12 volunteer teams will simultaneously build and operate small beach clinics in 3 different locations) will create opportunities for the involvement of nearly twice as many vessels in 2002 as participated this year. If you are planning (or would be able) to operate your vessel in Vanuatu between May and October of 2002 and are interested in some type of participation, please e-mail us at <meuzelaar@juno.com> or leave a message on the (moderated) public forum board at the <www.terrawatch.org> website. Your potential involvement could be as simple as dropping off a few packages in some of the ancorages you were already planning to visit, to direct participation in the medical, educational or technical tasks ashore. Highly valued technical skills include installation, repair and maintenance of clinic buildings, solar power systems, water supplies, schools and village aid posts as well as telecommunication, quartermaking, exploration of uncharted bays and anchorages and installation of secure mooring buoys.Are Project MARC teams planning to stay in the same island locations forever? Absolutely not. Our MOU with the government of Vanuatu emphasizes infrastructure and capacity building by reopening abandoned dispensaries and aid posts and training local aid post workers and nurses. Project MARC teams are scheduled to move on to new priority sites in Vanuatu or elsewhere in the SW Pacific within 3-5 years after their first visit to a given location while long-term support to island schools and clinics is taken over by sister schools and clinics in the industrialized world. Meanwhile, visiting cruising vessels are likely to remain a critical part of the long-term solution by their unique ability to re-supply the remote island communities. Henk and Nelleke MeuzelaarProject MARC Coordinators"Rivendel II", Port Vila, Vanuatu

 

[Jim WIllis]

Are you affiliated to CanvasBack

I used to run a "cleaner" contest at boat shows with a $100 prize. If nobody got it. then at the end of the yeaer it was given to a Souths Seas Charity. THe only one I knew was Canvasback.However, I did not necessarily agree with the proslyetizing (think I spelt that wrong). Would like to hear from you at www.IslandGIrlProducts.comI hasten to add that the prize thing is no longer functional. I now have to watch that I can survive and pay my wife's medical bills. But I could provide some exposure for you via my website.A.L. ('Jim") WIllis

 

[henkmeuzelaar]

No affiliation with Canvasback

Jim,However, we did meet Canvasback -- a giant, 70ft aluminum catamaran -- at the AlaWai marina in Honolulu in 1997, as well as on the water between the islands just before they set sail for the Marshall Islands. After talking to the professional captain for awhile and finding out more about their medical mission on the internet I was sufficiently intrigued to write them an e-mail message offering to help them deliver medical supplies to the Marshalls with Rivendel II at the start of our planned passage to Australia in 1998. They never even responded!As some other medical projects started by cruising sailors, e.g. Project Hope (not to be confused with our own parent organization The Hope Alliance), they grew too big too fast to maintain their association with sailing vessels. Project Hope (started with cruising vessels in Indonesia) has long since into an international humanitarian supply shipment plus land-based aid mode, whereas Canvasback has sold (or is still trying to sell) their big catamaran and has acquired one or two big coast guard cutter type vessls from the US government for a song and has been fundraising ever since to pay for the enormous amounts of diesel fuel required to sail such a vessel from the USA to the Marshalls and other destinations.So, when we left Hawaii in 1998 I was still a bit disappointed not to be able to help Canvasback but as soon as we stopped over in the remote Tuvalu archipelago and were emphatically asked by some of the community leaders there to help organize medical and educational aid we started the current project, first aimed at Tuvalu but -- after political upheavals in Fiji (our inteneded base of operations) and government changes in Tuvalu we switched our attention to neighboring Vanuatu. The rest of the story is recorded and illustrated on our website <http://www.terrawatch.org>.Contrary to Canvasback, which combined missionary activities with medical aid (primarily focussed on the extremely high diabetes incidence in The Marshalls), Project MARC does not proselytize. In fact, we carefully maintain a nondenominational stance in order to enable volunteers with different religions (or none at all) to participate amd also to deliver our assistance to all remote communities in Vanuatu, regardles of whether these vikllages are Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Seventh Day Adventists, Neil Thomas Ministries or pagan, to name the most prevalent denominations.Our 2001 teams included volunteers running the gamut from protestant to catholic, jewish to islam and mormon to agnostic.See yah in Vanuatu some day!Henk MeuzelaarProject MARC Coordinator

 

[Steve Dion]

Canvas back is not longer a mercy ship! (FYI).

Canvas back is sitting in port in Richmond Bay Marina in Richmond, CA. My understanding is that has been taken out of service as a mercy ship and is being sold or has been sold.They have now received either one or two other boats, that I think were from the coast guard. These are motor vessels and not a sailboat. There was an article in Latitude 38 last year on this subject.

 

[henkmeuzelaar]

In a way it now actually IS a "Mercy Ship" ...

Steve,Thanks for confirming most of my assumptions about what is happening to the CanvasBack program. I am not amazed that the catamaran is still sitting there; considering the unrealistically high asking price of nearly 1 million US $, at the same time that The Moorings were trying to sell another large Alucat for US $ 550,000 (also in vain, at least for a long time). Obviously, the inability to sell Canvasback for a high price must really have hurt their new motorvessel-based program and made it necessaru to do a lot of fundraising to just pay for the diesel fuel.Now, by using the term "mercy ship" you may unwittingly be confusing some people. The original "Mercy Ships" were (are?) part of yet another medical aid rprogram for island people. I am pretty sure, though, that these were also powerboats and not sailboats. So, in a sense, the Canvasback project is only now starting to use the real mercy ship model.Henk MeuzelaarProject MARC Coordinator

 

[Steve Dion]

Canvasback needs a lot of money too.

Henk:They are in need of about $7 mil to refit the two boats and get them ready to go. This was dated 2/2000.http://www.canvasback.org/projects/capital.html