Canadian Snipe Team McLaughlin/Damley-Strnad

Help Canadian sailors Evert McLaughlin and Alexandra Damley-Strnad get to the podium at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games in the Snipe Class!

Dearest family and friends,

It gives us great pride and pleasure to share with you that we will be representing Canada at the Pan American Games in July in the Snipe class. Our goal is to finish the event on the podium.

For the past six months, we have been training hard both in Miami and Toronto in order to win the Canadian spot for this class at the Games. Four weekends ago in Toronto, at the frigid qualification regatta used to determine the Canadian sailing team, we placed 1st out of nine boats, securing a spot for the two of us. We sailed a "perfect" regatta with a drop race, meaning that we finished in 1st place in each of the 6 races we sailed, accumulating only 6 points, the best possible score.

The 2015 Pan American Games will be held in Toronto from July 10th - 26th, and within these dates, the sailing event will be held from the 12th - 19th. We are honoured to have the opportunity to sail against past and future olympians at “home,” and we'd like to thank everyone thus far for helping to get us to this exciting point!

In order to achieve our goal of a top 3 finish, there are items we need apart from the training and dedication that will help make this goal a reality. Two sets of new sails, waxing and sanding the hull of the boat, paying the boat charter fee, cost of transporting the boat to different training venues, cost of transporting ourselves to different venues, boat trailer charter fee, and making sure we have sufficient coaching resources leading up to and during the Games are some of the things that will require money.

We are asking you for your support as we get closer and closer to our first day of competition. Please consider supporting CAN Snipe Team McLaughlin/Damley-Strnad by contributing to our campaign.

We're very much looking forward to the upcoming weeks of training and could not be more excited about representing our home country at one of the world's most prestigious sailing events! Thank you again for all of your support leading up to and over these next few weeks.

Sincerely,

Evert McLaughlin and Alexandra Damley-Strnad