Gypsy Moth IV Around Again

[webcraft]

Astounded to hear of this proposal.

I read 'Gipsy Moth CirclesThe World' recently for the first time. The overwhelming impression was that the boat was an absolute pig to sail.

- Nick

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.bluemoment.com>http://www.bluemoment.com</A></font size=1>

 

[tcm]

does seem a bit ambitious. Maybe it was that or the Mary Rose. Couldn't they celebrate the launch of the QE2 and get sloshed on a nice ferry cruise?

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[kimhollamby]

Sir Francis...

...famously said on his return that his cousins owned the front two-thirds and he owned the rear third and willingly wanted to give it back. He did find it a handful but then it was a lot of yacht for one person to manage. The proposal is not for a singlehanded voyage this time.

What it might do is generate the cash and interest necessary to secure the long-term future of the yacht.

If you haven't seen them yet take a look at the pics <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.ybw.com/ym/gipsymoth/today.html>here</A>. They are actually not the worst shots..we have some further examples that show just how quickly Gipsy Moth IV has deteriorated in just seven years since the last restoration. I think the view here is better let her see the sea again than degenerate into a pile of firewood at Greenwich where funding will always be hard to come by.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Guest]

Post deleted by danfoley

 

[kimhollamby]

Ah ha

Sorry, all built in a bit of a rush.

Try clicking the thumbnail pics themselves for now (they should work) and I'll go into the page and hyperlink the captions later today.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Guest]

Post deleted by danfoley

 

[Paul_Gelder]

Gypsy Moth\'s animal crew

Yes, you're right, Chichester did say of Gipsy Moth IV – 'she has no sentimental value for me at all... She is cantankerous and difficult and needs a crew of three – a man to navigate, an elephant to move the tiller and a 3ft 6in chimpanzee with arms 8ft long to get about below and work the gear!'

James Jermain has bravely volunteered to skipper the boat on the proposed 22-month voyage! And Tom Cunliffe has offered to be relief skipper.

It might even make an interesting article to see what can be done to make Gipsy Moth IV more seakindly. Her ballast was changed halfway through Chichester's solo circumnavigation when alterations to the keel were made in Sydney, Australia, by Warwick Hood.

Chichester, of course, took her through the Southern Ocean. We plan to take her via the tradewinds coconut run – across the Pacific.

Getting Gipsy Moth IV out of her concrete hole in Greenwich and sailing her back to Sydney for the 40th anniversary of Chichester's solo voyage, plus our magazine's 100th birthday is an ambitious project. But it would be a disgrace if she were left to rot away at Greenwich.



<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[kimhollamby]

Re: Ah ha

Ooooh, that shouldn't be happening. I can see them my end. Need to check...thanks for the report.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[jamesjermain]

Skipper\'s lot

As the 'volunteer' skipper for this project, I would like to say how much I am looking forward to the voyage and the build up to it. It is the chance of a lifetime. When Paul Gelder first came up with this inspired idea, I nearly bit the phone in my enthusiasm to be the first on board.

We have had a few discussions about the voyage and how it will be tackled and no doubt will have very many more. Among the big decisions which have to be made are:

In view of Chichester's views on the handling of Gypsy Moth do we take this opportunity to modify her keel and, in partticular, her rudder? Or do we regard her shape as historic and immutable and sail with the consequences?

Since the voyage is to be fully-crewed, possibly/probably with people buying berths on a leg-by-leg basis, do we remodel the interior to make her more comfortable and capable of taking more people. Or, again, do we regard the interior as sacrosanct. As she stands she could take five people in 'pipe-cot' comfort with a minimum of stowage and very basic 'amenities'. This could be extended to an uncomfortable six or seven with only minor alterations, which could easily be reversed. To make her comfortable for, say six people including a permanent skipper (me!), would take some considerable rebuilding which would lose much of the overall appearance of the boat as Chichester knew her.

Chichester would, I am sure, have been delighted to have the interior rebuilt. In his book he commented that, while Camper & Nicholson's craftsmen built the hull to the highest standards, the interior was cobbled together by apprentices. This is a bit unfair to C&N but there is some truth in it.

With a crew of six, there is probably no need to make major alterations to the rig, which was reasonably easy to handle anyway, although without modern roller reefing and slab reefing gear. However, she could easily be made more efficient and faster with a few simple modifications which would not affect the outward appearance of the rig. Since the proposed voyage is by the downwind, Trade Wind Route, and Chichester's passage was predominantly to windward through the worse conditions on the planet, some additional down wind and light wind canvas would be desirable.

These and many other topics can be discussed at length and your views would be very welcome. YM has set up a separate site and a separate forum for the Gipsy Moth Project where this sort of discussion can take place.

I just can't wait to get going!

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ

 

[tcm]

Re: crew

will Preecy be going?

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[tome]

Re: Skipper\'s lot

James

What an adventure! I'll take a look at the Gipsy Moth site and follow this with interest. It's always struck me as a lousy idea to leave her incarcarated in a concrete jacket ashore.

Regards
Tom

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Mirelle]

A gallon of paraffin and a match

is about all that boat is worth.

Not worth preserving.

I write as the devoted owner of a pre-War wooden boat, incidentally.

Unlike "Lively Lady", a proper boat, which seems to be doing quite well for herself, "Gypsy Moth IV" was built for a stunt, with no intention of durability. The cost of sorting out the structure will be far more than one might imagine - it always is, once you get started.

The money would be far better spent if donated to the "Cutty Sark", a ship of real historical value, which is in a real mess and is in imminent danger of falling apart.

We have far too many preserved boats and ships - we cannot keep them all going, and the result is that most of them are on the verge of disintegration.

"Gypsy Moth IV" does not deserve keeping. She embodies neither a breakthrough in technology, nor an interesting survival. Cold moulding is notoriously a short lived way to build a boat - rainwater entering the hull at the hull/deck joint runs down the laminates and starts rot deep in the structure.

Burn her, and spend the money on something worthwhile.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Twister_Ken]

Brave man! nm

`

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>

 

[Mirelle]

Not I! The brave men are Paul and James!

Paul for proposing a project which is going to be financially rather like a Black Hole, and James for venturing to put to sea in a boat, built for a special purpose with no plans for durability, after forty years of neglect in the English climate!

A repeat voyage in "Lively Lady" would be quite another matter - she is a proper boat, properly built out of good materials by people working within the tradition of yacht building, kept sailing and regularly maintained in good order.

With old wooden boats, as HW Tilman said, and I certainly agree, "The more you stir, the more it stinks". The cost of getting this one into a seaworthy condition will be fearsome - and she was not much good, considered as a boat, when she was new!

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[jamesjermain]

Nosh

Couldn't afford the food bills

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ

 

[NigeCh]

That\'s a nomination for the Turner Prize 2004

The problem is: What would you do with the hole and the ashes that are left?

IMO, what we should be preserving is Lipton's J-class boat that won the America's Cup in the 1930's and then our noble across-the-water 'friends' changed the rules post event so that he lost. (But that's our cousins ... and they are still at it )



<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[jamesjermain]

No illusions

We are under no illusions that refurbishing Gypsy Moth will be cheap. I can't tell you what our estimates are, but they're in the eyes watering bracket.

The really frustrating thing is that, if we, or someone, had only tackled this task no more that two years ago, she could almost have been launched and sailed 'as is'. Sadly, at that point a vandal put a hole in the cockpit which was not properly repaired and rot has got into the after sections if the keel and rudder post. It is repairable and we have estimates but it is not cheery reading.

Nevertheless, your views are understandable but I disagree with them. In particular I disagree that she 'she was not much good, considered as a boat, when she was new'.

Don't forget that she averaged 130 miles a day overall, considerably more that the clipper ships averaged in those days. She only missed the record of 100 days by a few days after losing her self-steering gear. She was, in fact, very fast, even sailed singlehanded.

She was undoubtedly a handful for Chichester who was then 65 years old, and had recently damaged his leg which was still not properly heeled on his return to the UK. He had also quite recently recovered from treatment for lung cancer. He was not, in short, a young man in the peak of health. All this, I believe, clouded his judgement of the boat and so he exaggerated the faults which she undoubtedly had. There is no question but that he disliked her and that she was the least enjoyable of all the boats he owned.

Her handling was greatly improved after the back end of the keel was remodelled in Sydney and could be further improved with a little work on the rudder. There is also a case for modifying the rig and the size of the mizzen though this would have less effect.

Also wind vane technology was in its infancy and the heath robinson contraption Chichester sailed with was never much cop. This also over-emphasised her handling problems. With a modern electronic autopilot, many of Chichester's grievances would have been disguised if not erradicated.

Anyway, I can't wait to find out the truth and how she stacks up in a modern context. My guess is she won't be perfect but she will be better than Chichester led us to believe in his writings.

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ

 

[jamesjermain]

JJ for a Darwin award perhaps?nm

.

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ

 

[Mirelle]

Re: No illusions

Don't worry, James, in the course of owning a 37ft wooden boat my eyes have watered a few times!

A working rule is "get an estimate, and then triple it". This applies to even the best organised wooden boat yards.

I have not seen a survey, of course, but I am very leery of 60's cold moulding; as noted above, rain water finds it easy to penetrate the hull/deck join, and then run down the inevitable small voids left in the diagonal planking, which then has to be stripped back to allow new veneers to be epoxied in place. I have seen a few examples of this. I hope I am wrong, but I think you will be "into" a substantially new hull - indeed it would probably be cheaper to build a new hull from scratch and shift the fittings over.

As for 130 miles a day - may I recommend a very economical expedient -re-read Conor O'Brien's "Across Three Oceans"! Granted he was not singlehanded, but he was getting similar passages, in the same latitudes, out of "Saoirse", a short (45ft) long keeled, full bodied, fishing boat type, relying on 1920's antifouling paint - i.e. dragging a garden along under him.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Jacket]

Re: No illusions

Does it really matter how good a yacht Gypsy math IV was? Surely the point is, she did something special that inspired a lot of people?

The Mary Rose was a pretty awful ship, but surely you agree her remains were worth saving? Victory was nothing special- practically identical to the tens of other second raters that were built- but try suggesting that she's not worth preserving.

<hr width=100% size=1>