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PRESS RELEASE
July 12, 2006
Final 30 for Morning Light Selection Trials Announced
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 résumés 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, and 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.
Andrés 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.
More information: www.pacifichighproductions.com/
MEDIA CONTACT
Rich Roberts
(310) 835-2526
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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