Rogerson gets representation

British Mini sailor signs with ORM International

With effect from 1 May 2009 British Mini sailor Ben Rogerson has signed with ORM|International (International Sports Campaign Management & Consulting) to manage and develop his 2011 Mini Transat Campaign.

The ORM|International management team (John Quigley, Michael Castania and Adam Kitchell) have broad experience in Offshore and Ocean campaign management including IRC, Open 60 and Volvo Ocean Race over many years, and for them the Mini Transat is new territory but no less exciting for all that.

John Quigley of ORM|International comments: "Getting behind this 2011 Mini Transat campaign with some seed funding and management time to help Ben realise his ambition is really refreshing stuff. This is grass roots Ocean Racing and, with a lot of hard work from Ben and the whole team, Ben can become one of the rising British Solo Ocean Racing stars. What most caught Mike Castania's and my attention was that without any sponsorship in place Ben has pushed on alone, with a lot of help from family and the local Cowes community, and secured the loan of a Mini Transat 6.5m in exchange for doing a refit and in the meantime continues to do a day job to try to make it happen. What also caught our eye was that this is different with Ben planning to design and build his new boat himself and then race it solo in the 2011 Mini Transat.

"The 2009 season is all about training, testing and proving and then taking the data from that forward into the design and build stages.

"Outside of this our focus in the coming months is identifying a corporate sponsor / partner to come onboard this relatively low cost endeavour. We think it is a big opportunity for someone to get really good value and return from this campaign budget, through good utilisation and brand value alignment; as well as putting their brand on new talent and potentially share the journey as his career develops."