The End

Re: Australia 2

I have a friend who races (extremely valuable) classic cars.... I have had this conversation with him on many occasions... his view, which he has won me round to supporting is that the people who designed and built these cars did so for the love of winning races, the smell of hot Castrol oil and the sound of an engine on full song...... and it would break their hearts to see them locked up in museums...... does this argument not also apply to classic racing boats?.... their soul is in the middle of an ocean... not behind a ticket desk.....
 
The national motorcycle museum proved how safe it is to put all your treasures in a museum?????

After the refit the boat is going to be as good as any other boat sailing the oceans.

Of course there is an element of risk involved but almost definitely less risky than a modern highspeed racing machine.
 
yes but the quicker they go the less time it takes the less time they are at sea there for the odds are about the same.
 
..... and the quicker they go the harder they hit these half sunken containers of which you speak.

Southace, from the way you speak I'm amazed you even contemplate owning a boat if you consider it that hazardous to be out on the water !

People sail oceans in yachts all the time, it's not a trivial or risk free undertaking by any means but the modest risk doesn't put them off. If we all went through life scared of whatever might happen we'd never get out of bed in the morning for fear of being struck by lightening !
 
I know! I am just egging u cold Brits on. Made a good topic though. I’m actually going to circumnavigate oz at Christmas (if I finish my boat) so I understand the risks to be taken.
 
[ QUOTE ]
..... and the quicker they go the harder they hit these half sunken containers of which you speak.

Have u heard of forward sounding sonars?? lol
 
I remember Chichester's homecoming and the sense of achievement and, frankly, wonder which it evoked. But try as I will I can't summon up any feeling that GMIV is worth restoring or worrying about. Good luck to anyone who feels differently or wants to participate in the project but it's not for me.
 
[ QUOTE ]


Have u heard of forward sounding sonars?? lol

[/ QUOTE ]

I've got more than enough things that bleep at me on the boat as it is thanks very much !!!
 
Many people under 40 yrs did not appreciate the significance of a old yacht stuck in a concrete box and clearly lacking TLC - often wondering what was it doing next to the Cutty Sark. Lets have it out on the water where it is meant to be and doing the job it was built for.

With apologies to Arthur R 'better sunk than decaying if not decaying won't sink'
 
[ QUOTE ]
Its an interesting point, but when the story of Gypsy Moth IV's sorry state was publicised I couldn't help but compare her to Suhaili, which is of a similar vintage, and wooden, but has been kept afloat and looks so much the better for it. If she had been left ashore, she would eventually have been unsalvageable.

[/ QUOTE ]

For a long time (several years) Suhaili was left ashore, just off the access road leading in to Woolverstone Marina. She was gradually looking more and more dilapidated; her rudder had fallen off and she was looking distinctly in need of some TLC. I even contemplated putting in an offer myself.

The only thing that saved her was the promise of some more sailing competition. Without that, I suspect that she would have just rotted away.
 
apart from being a publicity stunt, how can sir francis (chichester)'s feat be copied - impossible
without wishing to detract from todays 'daring doers' its 'cotton wool cosy as a bug in a rug - fukin help I am in trouble' travel now.
 
As I remember it there was considerable enthusiasm for both. I visited GMIV not long after she was put on display at Greenwich and there were certainly lengthy queues. My next visit to the site was a year or so ago when she looked in a very sad state.

The actual feat itself was very inaccurately reported by the popular press - to the extent that most people who recognise the name at all are likely to reply, "Chichester, yes, wasn't he the first bloke to sail round the world single handed?". This calumny is still being perpetrated, e.g. on one of the short film clips currently shown to the long suffering punters on the Heathrow Express (in between meerkats!)
 
Apparently when Sir Franie got back he moaned that it was a pig to sail, not beamy enough and scary to weather - after the '79 fastnet the rulings on length/width ratio's was attacked and changed. Older boats such as Javelins were considered not unsafe but not as seaworthy in certain conditions, hence if we look around our respective yards/marinas' you would notice the scale of evolution that has taken place with regard to hull dimensions, the key term here is -evolution- things get changed and tried and changed again until a level of success is attained, then the process starts again, each time a sucessful mark is acheived at that moment we think thats it - the epitome - the gunts kanukas',
thats what happened - apparently with G.M.4. If we dug out the Cutty Sark (I can see her top yards from my living room ha) and tried to go transat, she would be deemed unsafe by modern standards -wouldn't she
 
blimey the bloke was 68 years old when he left. I dont fancy that many of us will be around at that age even with modern medicine let alone run a 45 foot boat to any sensible level- what macarthur did was just to hang on -barely at times- the back up crew basicly ran the boat, told her where to go when to gybe etc. feed the cat blah blah.I know personally half a dozen women who could have done what she did but truly on their own, Respect for the enduro of it - not trying to take anything away from her , she was there and done it. Mr Chichester done it at triple her age with no sattelite info, no array of gizmo's and redundant backups, sextant and radio and experience were his tools, I have more respect for those nutbags escaping cuba on lorry innertubes than miss Mac -
 
Yes people harp on about GMIV as being badly designed, etc but forget that it was probably the first small sailboat designed specifically to be fast and light and do that singlehanded around the world. Also had to fit in with Chichester's requirements of main not being greater than 300 sq.ft and his age (think he was 65 when finished the trip, not 68 as said). All drove the design solution, with the design knowledge of the day, to a narrow beamed long waterline boat.

She sailed on her ear but so did most boats that were fast to windward then. Farr (who was only around 15 yrs old then), Holland, etc had not come up with the fast dinghy styled high initial stability boats that led to the style we see now (especially for singlehanded). In the end she did the job called of her.

As you infer by your safety comment, Cutty Sark is a bad design by todays standards. So is GMIV but they were both advances for the time. If anyone knows of any yachts that predate GMIV that were specifically designed to be fast singlehanded around the world, I would be interested to hear of them. I think the few, if any, examples will attest to another part of GMIV's own historic importance even though many of the lessons learnt from her were hard.

John
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

A
HELP! Trapper 300 Restoration - Seeking Blueprints for a Unique Family Yacht!
Replies
2
Views
255
Neeves
N

Share this page

Top