Z/Yen has long been associated with boats. We began supporting sailing events in 1994 and got involved with Elisabeth and Michael Mainelli’s Sailing Barge Lady Daphne in 1997, including sponsoring her topsail (look for the crazy logo). In 1998 we launched our networking games, Boating Bourses, on Lady Daphne, which were followed by several other training game formats. Naturally, people have asked about Lady Daphne’s participation in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. We are pleased to say that on a soaking Sunday, 3 June 2012, Lady Daphne was full of happy folk cheering the Queen and her Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant.

Our new client, the Maersk Group, is a Danish conglomerate with interests in shipping, energy, ports and terminals. They are committed to sustainability and have made great strides towards ‘green’ shipping as one of the very largest shipping companies in the world. After the Jubilee, Michael raced off to Copenhagen, where he lectured on financial techniques for valuing volatility reduction for environmental, social and governance initiatives at Maersk’s global sustainability conference. We wonder if the audience looked competitively worried when Michael fully declared the full extent of his commercial interests in shipping.

Finally, a sad tale from this eventful boating month, Lady Daphne was hit in a port/starboard racing incident at Pin Mill in Suffolk on 30 June. No one was injured, she is innocent and her damage is repairable. But the ear damage at the office has been severe as Michael relates the situation, “… two linked 90 tonne vessels bouncing around in a high force 5/low force 6, being pushed onto a lee shore, while I’m trying in vain to remove a 400 weight anchor stretched from one embedded in the aft port quarter of the other…” [what is this Gibberish? Stop – Ed.]