tcm
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I note with interest thesection of the teamellen website called <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.teamellen.com/ellen.asp?artid=1219#> Surprising facts</A> regarding Ellen's boat. This omits some of the more important facts :
1. Ellen is planning to go around the world in less than 72 days. Which is even less time than it takes to queue up to buy a new B&Q kitchen, order and wait for the gear cos it's never in stock unless it's the really REALY cheap range, assemble it, bodge around the corners and then go back several times to argue the toss about the missing door handles.
2. The weight of the boat is 8.3 tonnes, or about the same as 1660 bags of silavperil coarse grit. However, the bags of grit are usually outside at the back of anyB&Q store, and soaking wet from the rain, so you'd only need 1400ish bags for 8.3 tonnes, and some of them would be split, especially the ones at the bottom of the pile. You'd have to be a total idiot to buy them in bags from B&Q as well - much cheaper from Wickes. Or even better, ring up a grit supplier and get a lorry load delivered.
3. It took 62 paint trays to paint the livery. This is actually a total lie, cos anyone in their right mind would have sprayed the livery, and not used a load of nerks with paint trays, and definitely not the poxy £1.99 B Q ones. Anyway, why throw away a paint tray? Sounds like a load of money wasted. They probably had a massive lunch, and put it down as "paint tray" knowing that the sponsors would say ooh excellent, yes, we sell them so that's ok.
4. 1000 dust masks were used in making the B Q trimaran. Another lie - how could it have been EXACTLY one thousand? I spect they took delivery of 1000 and most of them are in someone's garage.
5. Lots of powertools were used in making B&Q trimaran. Obviously, none of these came from a B Q store cos they'd be rubbish, especially the poxy hole cutters which are absolute junk.
6. The mast on B&Q is slightly bent back. A bit like any piece of wood you might buy from a B&Q store, except that the mast on the boat is actually SUPPOSED to be bent.
7. It you wanted to saw up the hull of the B&Q trimaran to take it home in the car, it would take ages, especially if you went to a B&Q store because there's no woodcutting service with a big electric saw like in Homebase.
8. It would take 60 rolls of B&Q wallpaper to cover the mainsail, provided that you didn't mind the fact that there no hope of the pattern matching between different batches. So, really, this would be a fairly daft thing to do. A bit like drawing lame parallels between a superfast ocean racing trimaran and a chain of suburban DIY shops, i suppose...
1. Ellen is planning to go around the world in less than 72 days. Which is even less time than it takes to queue up to buy a new B&Q kitchen, order and wait for the gear cos it's never in stock unless it's the really REALY cheap range, assemble it, bodge around the corners and then go back several times to argue the toss about the missing door handles.
2. The weight of the boat is 8.3 tonnes, or about the same as 1660 bags of silavperil coarse grit. However, the bags of grit are usually outside at the back of anyB&Q store, and soaking wet from the rain, so you'd only need 1400ish bags for 8.3 tonnes, and some of them would be split, especially the ones at the bottom of the pile. You'd have to be a total idiot to buy them in bags from B&Q as well - much cheaper from Wickes. Or even better, ring up a grit supplier and get a lorry load delivered.
3. It took 62 paint trays to paint the livery. This is actually a total lie, cos anyone in their right mind would have sprayed the livery, and not used a load of nerks with paint trays, and definitely not the poxy £1.99 B Q ones. Anyway, why throw away a paint tray? Sounds like a load of money wasted. They probably had a massive lunch, and put it down as "paint tray" knowing that the sponsors would say ooh excellent, yes, we sell them so that's ok.
4. 1000 dust masks were used in making the B Q trimaran. Another lie - how could it have been EXACTLY one thousand? I spect they took delivery of 1000 and most of them are in someone's garage.
5. Lots of powertools were used in making B&Q trimaran. Obviously, none of these came from a B Q store cos they'd be rubbish, especially the poxy hole cutters which are absolute junk.
6. The mast on B&Q is slightly bent back. A bit like any piece of wood you might buy from a B&Q store, except that the mast on the boat is actually SUPPOSED to be bent.
7. It you wanted to saw up the hull of the B&Q trimaran to take it home in the car, it would take ages, especially if you went to a B&Q store because there's no woodcutting service with a big electric saw like in Homebase.
8. It would take 60 rolls of B&Q wallpaper to cover the mainsail, provided that you didn't mind the fact that there no hope of the pattern matching between different batches. So, really, this would be a fairly daft thing to do. A bit like drawing lame parallels between a superfast ocean racing trimaran and a chain of suburban DIY shops, i suppose...
