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LOS ANGELES---The 30 young men and women chosen from among 538 applicants for Roy
Disney's Morning
Light film project share one quality: unlimited ambition. One typical teenage candidate will enter Yale
University
in the fall while another is shooting for the stars as she studies to become an atypical female astrophysicist.
But first, Hawaii calls.
The 30 will participate in Selection Trials in Long Beach Aug. 5-13, all expenses paid by Pacific High
Productions. The final team of 15 will be announced at the end of those trials and will undergo four
months of
training on the Transpac 52 Morning Light in Hawaii starting in January. Then 11 or 12 will race Morning
Light
from Los Angeles to Hawaii in the 44th Transpacific Yacht Race starting July 15, 2007, without professional
assistance on board.
The 30, including five females and representing 14 states, plus Canada, Australia and the West Indies,
were
selected through r�m�and personal interviews, but youth was one firm standard. Together
they will be the
youngest crew ever to sail Transpac.
The average age of the crew will be younger than the seven men who sailed on Jon Andron's victorious
Cal 40,
Argonaut, in the 1969 Transpac that averaged 22.57 years of age. Two of those crew members were 17,
but the
minimum age for Morning Light is 18, as of Jan. 1, 2007.
It could also be the most diverse crew ever to sail Transpac. The 30 include minorities not generally
associated
with the sport, including Felipe Lopez, 18, of Friday Harbor, Wash. and Marcellus Wesley, 22, and Omari
Scott, 22, student sailors at Hampton University in Virginia, one of the nation's leading colleges and
universities
for African-American students. Scott is from Antigua, West Indies.
Raiden (pronounced rydun) Hasegawa of Evanston, Ill. is a recent graduate of Evanston Township, a public
high
school of 3,500 students, who will enroll at Yale in the fall and join the sailing team while pursuing
majors in
"physics or economics---or both," he said. "I have never done any big ocean racing, mostly
dinghies around
buoys on Lake Michigan," Hasegawa said. "I'm looking for all the new experiences in sailing
and it would seem
incredible to train in Hawaii and sail the Transpac race."
Last summer he and a friend bought a 470---an Olympic class boat---and sailed the class Nationals and
North
Americans while training with the US Sailing Team. Hasegawa also attended the CISA Advanced Racing Clinic
in Long Beach the last two years. "We didn't have the best results but it got us into a different
arena of sailing,"
he said. "I'm new to racing but I was the first person in my family to sail."
Kate Theisen (pronounced tyson) lived on a boat in various East Coast ports with her parents from age
3 and
was inspired by another film, as she hopes Morning Light will inspire others. "I saw the movie
Wind ages ago
and I've always wanted to race," she said. "I've done small boat racing and I grew up on a
sailboat." She attends
the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and this summer is an intern at Caltech, aiming for
a career
in astrophysics.
Two other of the 30 come from sailboat racing roots. Anna Brun, 20, of San Diego is the daughter of
Vince
Brun, who has won more than a dozen world championships in various classes. Jeremy Wilmot, 20, has
Australian elders who are well established in international ocean racing.
The film, scheduled to be released in 2008, will chronicle the recruitment, training and performance
of the crew
through the race in 2007. It will be a straightforward documentary not to be confused with the creative
format of
the current made-for-TV "reality" shows.
Executive producers are Roy E. Disney and Leslie DeMeuse of Pacific High Productions and Mike Tollin
of
Tollin/Robbins Productions (TRP). Fred Golding will be the director. The film, to be shot in High Definition
theatrical quality, will be distributed by the Walt Disney Co.
Robbie Haines, an Olympic gold medalist and veteran ocean racer, is the sailing team manager.
Finalists for the Selection Trials (in alphabetical order):
*Lindsey Austin, 21, Honolulu, Hawaii
Trevor Bozina, 21, San Francisco, Calif.
Chris Branning, 22, from Sarasota, Fla.
Graham Brant-Zawadzki, 21, Newport Beach, Calif.
*Anna Brun, 20, San Diego, Calif.
Chris Clark, 20, Old Greenwich, Conn.
Charlie Enright, 21, Providence, R.I.
Jesse Fielding, 19, North Kingstown, R.I.
Raiden Hasegawa, 18, Evanston, Ill.
Robbie Kane, 21, Fairfield, Conn.
Felipe Lopez, 18, Friday Harbor, Wash.
Steve Manson, 21, Baltimore, Md.
Robert (Max) Moosmann, 19, Newport Beach, Calif.
Colin Ranney, 21, Newport, R.I.
John Romanko, 19, Vancouver, B.C.
Chris Schubert, 21, Rye, N.Y.
Riley Schutt, 21, Trumansburg, N.Y.
Omari Scott, 22, Antigua, West Indies
Parker Shinn, 19, San Diego, Calif.
Andr�Soriano, 20, New York, N.Y.
*Jennifer Stone, 20, Haverhill, Mass.
*Kate Theisen, 19, Socorro, N.M.
Mark Towill, 17, Kaneohe, Hawaii
*Genny Tulloch, 21, Houston, Texas
Piet van Os, 22, La Jolla, Calif.
Chris Vetter, 18, St. Petersburg, Fla.
Chris Welch, 18, Grosse Pointe Park, Mich.
Marcellus Wesley, 22, Washington D.C.
Kit Will, 21, Milton, Mass.
Jeremy Wilmot, 20, Australia.
*---Female.
MEDIA CONTACT
Rich Roberts
(310) 835-2526
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TRANSPAC RACE STATUS
