NIPPON CUP 2004 INTERNATIONAL MATCH RACE SAILING SKIPPERS SWEDISH MATCH TOUR SKIPPER:GEOFF MEEK ゲオフ ミーク NATIONALITY: South African RESIDENCE: CapeTown,South Africa DATE OF BIRTH(YEAR): 51years old TEAM: SHOSHOLOZA for America's Cup2007 CREW LIST: Alex Runciman , Marc Mallac-Lagesse , Guido Verhovert ISAFマッチレースランキング960位 ミークは長年に渡って国際的なビッグボートレガッタを制覇してきたベテランセイラーである。82ftマキシのヨーロピアンシリーズを始め、カウスウイークレガッタサーキットを南アフリカのスキッパーとして制覇し、アメリカ、イギリス、ヨーロッパを転戦してきた、サウスアフリカ ヨットマンオブジイヤーを5回も受賞している南アフリカを代表するセイラーである。彼はまた、南アフリカのノースセイルのディレクターでもあり、今なおケープタウンでディンギーレースをこなす51才である。 Additional Information: Meek is a world champion South African yachtsman who was the alternate skipper for the British team in their pre-America's Cup trials in Freemantle in 1987. As a skipper and helmsman he has won many international big boat yacht racing championships over the years, among them the Fastnet Race and Cowes Week in the UK, the Sydney Hobart Race, the SORC Race Week in Miami, Block Island Race Week off New York, Sardinia Cup, the Southern Cross Cup in Sydney and the Onion Patch regatta in Newport, US. He was also invited to skipper one of the 82 foot Maxi's in a European Series organised by Ernesto Bertarelli, head of the Swiss Alinghi Challenge, the current America's Cup defending champions. As skipper of the official South African entry in the series he won the Cowes Week regatta of the circuit. He spent four years in the 1970's racing extensively on the international yacht racing circuit in the United States, the UK and Europe and studied sailmaking in the UK. He returned to South Africa in the late '70's to open his own sail loft in Cape Town. He is still a sailmaker by profession and a director of North Sails, South Africa. Meek has won every major offshore regatta in South Africa and holds the record of 20 Table Bay Race Week championship titles.He has skippered five Lipton Challenge Cup regattas, two of which were winning campaigns with Royal Cape Yacht Club and Hermanus Yacht Club.. He has been South African Yachtsman of the Year five times and has been awarded SA Colours for yachting six times. He has also been awarded the State President's Sports Merit Award. It has always been his dream to skipper a South African Challenge in the America's Cup and he came close to doing so 12 years ago, but political factors intervened. For him, the current campaign represents more than a dream come true. Meek is 51 years old and grew up in Cape Town racing dinghies. (C) NIPPON CUP ORGANAIZING COMMITTEE 2004 Supported by IMPRESSION CO LTD,.