I’ve just spent the morning talking to Chris Satchwell who is a Director of Sunsail and runs that company’s programme of corporate sailing, team building and hospitality events from Port Solent in Portsmouth Harbour.

He gave me some impressive figures. Their fleet of 50 match Jeanneau Sunfast 37s had 6,800 yacht turnrounds (ie crew changes) in 2005 – so with an average of six crew per boat that’s an incredible 40,800 people through their boats’ companionways.

One of the biggest regattas they organise is for Polypipe, the British company that specialises in, er, plastic piping for the construction and other engineering industries. This had 480 crew taking part. ‘So, said Chris, ‘if you couldn’t find a plumber when the regatta was on you know where they were.’

The inter-brewery regatta sounds interesting too. The entry fee is a keg of their own brew.

For the full story on corporate charter and team building events see February 2007 Yachting World.