Sailing Sixties

castaway

castaway

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Anyone else catch the Sailing program on BBC2 at midnight 30 this morning, I doubt it. what a time to put it on!

1st decent sailing feature Ive seen in years.. 60 mins showing how the sailing bug caught on with the new middle classes utilising the new materials of the day...all fairly familiar stuff Jack Holt/ Barry Bucknell of Mirror fame. BB isstill sailing what looks like an Iroquoise well into his 90s.

It moved on to the real yachting heros of the time, with unfamiliar footage of the Round the World races of the 60s and 70s. Not only the winners like Knox Johnston and Chichester but the more tragic charicters like Donald Crowhurst and how his disception drove another compeditior in the Golden Globe race Nigel Tetley, to drive his Tri to distruction, and ultimately possibly his [Tetley's] own suicide.

All best Nick

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I'm a sad case too I watched it even though I had the tape ready to go.

Interesting bit about the first AWBs, they showed the start of the grp revolution and remarked about the dozens of identical boats! The film showed rows of Sabres from Marcon and Centaurs from Westerly, so these must have been the first true AWBs!

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>
 
Yes... shame about the timing.

Almost made me feel not quite so resentful about the licence fee we pay to watch BBc programing, which is now worse rubbish than the stuff we recieve from the commercial stations.

Nick

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<< BB is still sailing what looks like an Iroquoise well into his 90s.>>

Unfortunately he died in Feb of last year but was still sailing regularly until then.

John

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Great programme, came across it by accident. Enjoyed the tiny bit showing Centaurs being built particularly.
Watching Knox Johnson et al going through what they did in Oilskins and taking sextant sights really sinks in after a rough cross channel dash 2 weeks ago. Surely programmes like this have got to be worth more air time than BB etc. Hope there is a seventies version. !


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It was good to see nearly new classic yachts sailing around in their prime in Technicolor.

I could only keep awake for the first 1/2 hour but things that tickled me were:

A 20 something Valerie Singleton having a dinghy sailing lesson with a very young Bob Fisher.

People fretting back in the 60's about "where are all these new plastic boats were going to be moored".

That familiar theme tune to the Money Program.

<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by jonjo on 20/07/2004 21:12 (server time).</FONT></P>
 
They show three sailing progs of the 60's about once a month on BBC3. The one you saw; the strange voyage of Donald Crowhurst; RKJ goes solo round the World.

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Crowhurst is assumed to have committed suicide after his yacht was found abandoned in the South Atlantic. The log made it clear that he had been sailing round in circles (rather than around the World) and it seems as if the balance of his mind had become disturbed.

Nigel Tetley also committed suicide but I think he did it on dry land. His widow, Eve, lived for some years after his death on a Tri (which was presumably his next project) in a mudberth at Mercury on the Hamble. We were across the pontoon from her but as I was about 14 at the time, I didn't have the nerve to ask her what had happened. A sad story, whatever.

Edit: A quick Google reveals the following: <<Nigel Tetley never got over being forced to push his boat to destruction and losing the big prize. The Sunday Times awarded him a £1,000 consolation prize which he used to build a second trimaran, but the burden of defeat became overwhelming and he too committed suicide, hanging himself a year later. >>



<hr width=100% size=1>Je suis Marxiste - tendance Groucho<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by jhr on 22/07/2004 14:16 (server time).</FONT></P>
 
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