Whereas we are a new startup struggling amidst a global pandemic, we are conflictedly excited to finally have local Maine stores display our repurposed race sail items this holiday- to be sold for the sole purpose of preventing waste in the ocean racing community, contributing to ocean positive causes and providing you with a piece of the race.

The mass appeal to the over consumption on Black Friday makes us shutter.  Consumption is overrated. The result is an overflow of our landfills and overflow of plastic pollution into our precious oceans and waterways which we depend on.

We have a hard time reconciling the message that we want you to buy our products because they are just that, material products.  We hope that bringing you products that are functional, fashionable, repurposed, historically significant, unique and limited edition, and for a good cause will ease our conscious. However, this Friday, we insist that we’d much rather you stay home with your loved ones, turn off your electronic buying devices, go out and explore something outside safely at a social distance, write letters or Holiday cards, and/or Zoom connect with friends you haven’t seen all year.   

On that note, we understand the allure of a great discount on that great thoughtful item you’ve been eyeing the last few months, you have been waiting for a good deal this weekend!  We applaud your patience and hope you have considered the following: whether you really need it, is it good quality, does it support local business?  

We are proud to be amongst other amazing brands leading the way in helping to shift our business models away from gross wasteful consumption and encourage you, our friends to consider, too, your shopping habits this holiday season.  A few things we would encourage you to consider: 

*Buy only what you or your giftees need

*Gift cards can be wonderfully considerate and less wasteful

*What is the item made from? Where? And How?

*What is the end of life destiny of the item? How long will it be used? 

*What is the packaging? How will that be discarded?  

*If you order online with the intent of returning items you don’t like/don’t fit, are you aware mostly likely those returns will be discarded, landfilled or incinerated - and not put back on the shelves?

What other great ideas do you have for gifts, activities, dinners, desserts, and decor this holiday season? More ideas from us and inspiration we found below!

We were thrilled and are thankful that our Volvo Open 70 Camper Tote made the marketing campaign for the 2020 Thoughtful Giving Guide by our friends at the Plastic Pollution Coalition!  We have considered that we simply don’t want these amazingly designed sails that have helped a Volvo Ocean Race team get Round the World from ending up in a landfill. We have also considered that there are other thoughtful, eco friendly gifts that we would encourage you to think about this holiday.

In case you were wondering why we are particularly excited about our Camper sails and EcoAlf’s mission? We loved seeing their brands collaborate last year, it has been part of our inspiration! We strive to work with the sponsors that are on the sails we save and we are in discussions with some global brands aspiring to create positively impactful collections and campaigns! Stay tuned for what’s in store in 2021!

We try to not let you go without some great ocean racer footage, we leave you with the inaugural sail from the Volvo Open 70 Camper prior to the 2011-2012 Volvo Ocean Race start! Check out the fascinating history of The Ocean Race here. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

By Melissa Kalicin, Founder, Director of Business Philosophy

The Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 has its first new boat in the water, as CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand launched its boat for the first sail this week at ...

Oceanum Vela repurposes elite racing yacht sails into authentic race sail memorabilia, saving them from occupying landfills around the world. The business of making sail bags is not an entirely a new concept as tons and tons of sails are repurposed every year by lovely boutiques around the world. These sail repurposing boutiques have been collecting mostly old cruising and small race sails for decades now, and they get turned into very nice repurposed sail bags and accessories. 

So where do old famous and elite race sails end up? I’ve found a few race yacht sails repurposed in these said boutiques here or there, but where do the massive collection of old and retired race sails go? I’ve talked to skippers and boat managers of several flashy race yachts; Brian Thompson told me he wanted to have old Phaedo 3 sails repurposed, but hadn't the means to figure out the logistics. Who wanted the massive and heavy old sails? Who was going to take them and transport them to where they would need to go? Heartbrokenly, this is why I decided to start the initiative, Oceanum Vela - to help facilitate collecting old race sails to be repurposed! 

After chasing my sailing dream of getting on a few old Volvo Ocean Race yachts to see what it was all about, it was confirmed what is mostly done with old race sails; and it turns out, its actually a serious end of life waste management issue. I personally saw original Whitbread spinnakers get blown out and then - tossed out. 

One particular experience sailing on and discussing the issue with the Warrior Sailing Team that ran the Volvo Open 70 (VO70), former Camper that raced in 2011-2012, I found two old main sails that I was told I could salvage if I picked them up at the boatyard before someone tripped on them and decided they were better placed in the bin. One of these mainsails help realize one of the most memorable sailing experiences of my life- helming at 22 knots and making it from Bermuda to the mouth of the Delaware in 48hours flat. It should be noted within that time, the first 12hours of the trip were spent in glassy calm Bermudian waters where we stopped to have a dip and swing from the halyard! Those Warrior guys were super welcoming onboard and made that part of the trip back home a ton of fun; not only inspiring to create something from their famously designed Volvo Ocean Race sails.

I went back to visit Antigua for the Caribbean 600 in February where it all seemingly started for me; this year’s trip I was able to meet a half dozen or so new teams and former Volvo Ocean Race boats, the more I meet and discuss with, the more I hear more of the same… it’s an issue, a major issue to know what to do with big old race sails when they are no longer sailable. Team Maserati helped gather up a few former Ericsson 3 sails from their VO70 that raced in VOR 2008-2009, however, it was confessed to me that 3 delaminated Mod70 sails the team had since let away to a far less appealing destiny. That destiny is tons of plastic filling up massive space in a landfill.  

The first VO70 I got a little ride on during Les Voiles de St Barts in 2016 was when I was invited aboard by Leonel Pean and Team SFS. This boat is now branded I Love Poland but was originally Puma Mar Mostro from the VOR 2011-2012. The boat manager/skipper confessed he had had 3 Team SCA (from the all female team to complete in the race while it was known as the Volvo Ocean Race) training sails that they put into a bin a bit over a year ago. I’ve intended to find some of these sails to offer help in supporting The Magenta Project with repurposed sails from their training time getting ready for their Round the World jaunt! The former SCA boat that actually competed in VOR 2014-2015, despite the fact that the yacht was only few islands away while I was in Antigua and now known as AmberSails2, I missed it in this year’s jaunt to the Caribbean.  

The good news is that we found the former Vestas 11th Hour Racing yacht from the VOR 2017-2018, where we might have just scored a broken FRO (Fractional Code Zero, the largest and most impressive of the genoa headsails) and Wizard rocked up to the dock with a broken old Volvo Ocean Race Winning Groupama 4 jib! Let me help these programs give these old sails a new life instead of dying in a landfill. Let’s help preserve the culture and history of the Life At the Extreme that these sails have endured.  Let’s do this while helping to support projects that help protect our playground!  

These sails raced around the planet and now provide for the planet today instead of contributing to planet waste; to help celebrate World Oceans Day and protect the ocean they raced- Get your piece of the race!

June 8, World Oceans Day is important this year - as for 2020 World Oceans Day is a growing global movement to call on world leaders to protect 30% of our blue planet by 2030. This critical need is called 30x30. By safeguarding at least 30% of our ocean through a network of highly protected areas we can help ensure a healthy home for all! To help support this effort, sign their petition

We have partnered up with a local nonprofit, Clean Ocean Access (COA) based in Newport, RI for the month of June to support their critical efforts with 10% of proceeds from all sales. COA’s goals are to eliminate marine debris, improve coastal water quality, and protect and preserve shoreline access. Clean Ocean Access aims to promote a sustainable sailing community through projects such as Healthy Soils, Healthy Seas, RI, and Shrink Wrap Recycling. To learn more about COA, visit their website. 

We can’t forget the amazingly exciting ocean race footage from the Caribbean 600 2020- Shop here to Get a Piece of the Race and support World Oceans Today!

Wrap up film of the 2020 RORC Caribbean 600 - 'A race to get addicted to' 12th Edition 11 Caribbean Islands 73 Entries 700 Sailors 37 Nations 600 Nautical Mi...

by Melissa Kalicin, Founder and Director of Business Philosophy

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Love is in the air and the excitement of the upcoming Royal Ocean Racing Club’s (RORC) Caribbean 600 is unmatched this time of year.  We are reminiscing to mid February 2016 when I- Founder of Oceanum Vela, sustainability professional turned solo adventure sailor- had found a love for everything ocean racing.  

My affinity for ocean racing stems from embarking on what seemed to be an adventure of a lifetime. After living on my boat for 10 years in Boston Harbor, I was solo sailing my own Freedom 38 around the Caribbean; weaving in and out of some of the finest regattas I had ever participated in. It seemed most of the ports I visited, I was dropping anchor in the right place at the right time - amidst race yacht havens where I got up-close encounters to the most exciting race yachts in the world. Fortuitously and with much enthusiasm, my social circle of new sailor friends scored me invitations to sail in the Heineken, Les Voiles de St Bart’s, The Bucket, and Antigua Race Week Regattas. How does one not become enamored with the international sailing and ocean race community consisting of an upmost friendly sailing community, the hottest racing yachts around, in some of the most beautiful waters on earth?  

Totally intrigued, P3 was tied up where I first tied up my Freedom upon reaching Antigua a few weeks prior after skippering my first major offshore sail from Bermuda.

Was it the atmosphere or a seeming rendezvous of super exciting racing yachts around every corner? We’re not sure; but it was during this trip where I found a boat love of a lifetime! I always jokingly said that Phaedo 3, at the time still in flashy green branding with bright orange accented rudders and a metallic reflective hull Mod 70, followed me around the Caribbean that winter.  The Phaedo 3 Campaign was participating in the Caribbean race circuit had just arrived to Antigua when I stumbled across this sexy race machine. I had never seen anything like it before in my life!

Looking back I must have been targeted to become Phaedo 3’s biggest fan as accounts of the Mod 70s performance in the Caribbean 600 started showing up on my Facebook feed.  It was random posts that popped up where I learned that that crazy boat was zooming around the islands I was exploring at the time. Really quite unaware as engulfed in my own adventure, this race machine seemed to never leave my periphery. 

It was the beginning of March when I headed to St Martin to meet up with some friends. After sailing into Marigot Bay under the cover of darkness I had the pleasure of waking up to find the flashy green trimaran moored at anchor just a few boats away!  Finding myself on a boat racing in the Round the Island race just prior to the Heineken Regatta is where I encountered this 3 hulled racing monster coming right up beside us in action; which quickly made us seem like we were in a relatively insignificant monohull. Phaedo 3 raced by flying a hull so magnificently that I swore the hull almost hit our spreaders! That Mod 70 ate us up, spit us out and was around that island before any of us knew what we had just witnessed! 

To get a glimpse of what we witnessed, see Phaedo 3’s performance in the Caribbean 600 2016:

It was during Les Voiles de St Bart’s where a much more race worldly fellow crew pointed out that the skipper to the drool inducing Phaedo 3 was standing by me. Brian Thompson is a kind skipper who indulged in talking to a green lil’l race sailor and was so gracious to extend an offer for a tour of the boat! I was thrilled… to say the least. Life seemingly has never been the same; I was in love with that boat. 

Phaedo 3 Boat Tour in Gustavia, St Bart’s

Tracking and following it’s performance in its next upcoming races assured the great admiration I acquired for Phaedo 3’s skipper as the master of that beast.  I found myself in perpetual awe following the races, records broken, the media production, and the entire race campaign…of my boat love, Mod 70-Flashy Green-Phaedo 3.  Thank you Lloyd, Brian, Fletcher, Rob, Rachel and Richard - to a fabulous boat, racing, and campaign!

Check out the media talent that followed Phaedo 3; So Racey!

It was the next winter after returning to Antigua again on my Freedom, this time with a Waszp that I determined to teach myself to sail, when I started thinking about repurposing race sails. One day sitting at the café on the dock by Phaedo 3’s berth, I witnessed the crew and a few North Sails guys hauling the Mod 70’s main to be taken to the loft for repairs. 

Knowing the North Sails loft fairly well in Antigua, I secretly wanted to follow the sail and find out all about it; take witness to the large flashy green ‘3’ the sail sported up-close, and ultimately wanted to get a piece of it!  I sat there and dreamed of getting a piece of authentic Phaedo 3 memorabilia from its sail. Constraint was shown and it was let alone to be handled by the guys at North Sails to work on undistracted by a silly sailor girl. Meanwhile the inception of creating an authentic repurposed race sail line of products that satisfied my race fan need and passion for responsible businesses was dreamed of. I wanted to encourage less waste in the industry and help fund projects and awareness to help support a healthy ocean and planet. Today I call this project, ŌcĕănumVĕla- Latin for Ocean Sails.  

Brokenheartedly, Phaedo 3 no longer exists in the name and branding, nor was I able to score sail pieces for memorabilia. However, this year’s RORC Caribbean 600 promises a sensational lineup of both some of the most historic and hottest race yachts in the world; from 3 Mod 70s and more than a half dozen former Whitbread and Volvo Ocean Racers listed in the Race’s 2020 Entries. If that entry list doesn’t do it for you, check out the 2016 Wrap up video below for your pure entertainment. Stay tuned as we head down to the race start to bring you some pieces of the excitement!

Thank you for visiting,

Melissa Kalicin, Founder and Director of Business Philosophy

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