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‘All hands on deck’ call to save The Spirit

The Spirit of Bermuda approaches The Azores after a week-long voyage in April 2009.

One of Bermuda’s most high-profile charities could run aground because of a lack of cash, The Royal Gazette can reveal.The Bermuda Sloop Foundation is to launch a fund-raising campaign this week in a bid to save the popular charity, which provides ocean sailing experiences to teenagers on-board its Bermuda-rigged 118-ft vessel The Spirit of Bermuda.Yesterday the foundation’s chief executive officer, Denise Riviere, remained tight-lipped about the state of the organisation’s finances.But she did confirm that on-board programmes were “at risk”, adding: “We are planning to reach out to the community to join efforts in saving it.”In a rallying cry to potential sponsors, Ms Riviere urged for “all hands on deck”, saying that, because of the “severity of our situation”, the foundation needed to “motivate the community to save one of our national icons and most effective youth character development programmes”.Ms Riviere did confirm that details of the foundation’s funding and donor status will be revealed at a press conference on-board its ship tomorrow, when the foundation will launch its Save Spirit of Bermuda campaignLast night Community and Cultural Affairs Minister Wayne Scott said he was unaware that the charity was running into any difficulties. The Minister pointed out that, although Government does support the charity financially, that grant covered only a very small percentage of the foundation’s annual running costs, with the vast majority of its budget provided by private backers.The charity has seen its operational costs skyrocket since its foundation in 2006, largely as a result of a massive increase in the number of voyages taken by Spirit of Bermuda.The Spirit of Bermuda has racked up thousands of miles taking teenagers on experimental voyages of up to 17 days across the Atlantic.