TV mans boat hits the water for charity

After a hectic three months of preparation, Wild Rover, BBC South East television presenter Rob Smith's yacht, is now at last in the water ahead of a challenging voyage round mainland Britain this summer in aid of UK's leading blood cancer charity Leukaemia Research.

On Saturday 31 May you can meet Rob in person at the Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre in Kent, where he will be collecting for the charity and talking about the aims of the expedition. Rob hopes to raise £20,000 for Leukaemia Research and around £4,000 has already been pledged.

The trip was inspired by the death of a young woman called Jessie Whitmore who died of acute myeloid leukaemia. Rob explained: "I interviewed Jessie for the news back in 2005, and she was such a positive, forward looking happy girl; I never thought that there would be anything other than a positive outcome. When we covered her funeral six months later, it really got to me. That's why I want to do something to help, to try and prevent such horrible things happening to families in the future."

Jessie's mum Lorraine is fully supporting the sailing event, and went out on Wild Rover for the first time over the weekend. She said: "Jessie was a very out-going girl and once she'd set her mind to something she just had to achieve it before moving onto the next thing. She loved a challenge and sailing round Britain would have been right up her street, I've no doubt that if she was still here that she'd be asking to go with Rob. The fact that he's doing something he loves and is helping other people in the process - and doing it all in Jessie's name - is fantastic."

The 32ft boat has undergone an extensive refit over the winter, with a host of new bits of kit added thanks to the generosity of a number of sponsors. Raymarine have kindly provided the boat with a state of the art chartplotter - a seagoing satellite navigation system that also warns when other ships are near - very useful when it's foggy and at night!

The boat will be leaving from Gillingham Marina in Kent on 12 June, and Rob hopes to complete the voyage in just three weeks, stopping off in Newcastle, NE Scotland, Belfast and Plymouth on the way round. You can follow the progress of Wild Rover on the dedicated website, www.sailroundbritain.co.uk. To sponsor Rob in his fundraising effort, please visit his online fundraising website at www.justgiving.com/sailroundbritain