Cody to tackle Copenhagen tall ship adventure

Our 2018 Woodside Cadet and volunteer, Cody McDermott, waved goodbye to Perth last week as he boarded a plane bound for Copenhagen to join the Gulden Leeuw for the first of the 2019 Tall Ship Races sailing from Allborg in Denmark to Fredrikstad in Norway.

In 2018, a great supporter of sail training for young people, Mr Keith Robinson, died in England. Donations made at his memorial service were given to Sail Training International (STI) by his family and the Trustees of STI matched this to support a one-off bursary project for youth from across the world to take part in the 2019 races.

Further supported through funding from Tall Ships Australia and New Zealand (TANZ) this incredible opportunity was presented to Leeuwin Ocean Adventure and fellow sail training organisations around Australia.

Leeuwin Ocean Adventure selected Cody McDermott to apply for the “Keith’s Crew Bursary” – and the rest is history. Cody was successful in securing his passage on Gulden Leeuw and through the support of TANZ, Woodside Energy and Leeuwin Ocean Adventure, he is on his way.

“I’ll be like a kid in a candy store when I see all the tall ships lined up along the wharves! I’m really excited to see all the ships sailing along, as well as meeting people from around the world who have come to attend the event,” said Cody.

“The Tallship Races bring together so many different people from so many cultures, backgrounds and levels of experience with ships coming from Oman, Mexico, Europe, America, and Portugal. It’s a great big melting pot of people who all enjoy the hard life and the passion of working on tall ships. It’s an incredibly beautiful common ground to share with people!”

“The opportunity to see so many ships with different rigs, builds, materials, ages, is going to be incredibly eye opening. It’ll broaden my understanding of ships as a whole and expose me to new approaches to the things we do on Leeuwin.”

“There are things that Gulden Leeuw will do differently to Leeuwin, just as there are things that we do differently on Leeuwin to a lot of other ships. This new perspective will be really helpful for my personal career growth.”

“Leeuwin Ocean Adventure has been incredibly supportive in making this opportunity become a reality for me. The encouragement and support I received from staff and crew really helped me get to Europe and I know that the knowledge, skills and work ethic I have learnt from Leeuwin will help me in this new endeavour.”

Good luck on this fantastic adventure Cody – we look forward to seeing you later end of July – and we hope you’ll convince some tall ship adventurers from countries far and wide to come and check out tall ship adventure, Australian style!