She's marginally bigger than Royalist. Neither boat is/was particularly large.... the design is a compromise no doubt, to maximise her potential as a sail trainer for youngsters, rather than to maximise her potential to deliver goods or mail quickly!
...... But the new ship is being commissioned in London today.
.....
It's an important consideration, otherwise why bother with square rig at all, but if that was the sole reason then logically we'd only send up voyage crew to do it. Whereas on several occasions as a Deckhand (volunteer crew position, on day-work rather than watches) I've been roused out of bed to go and stow a topsail when the OOW decided it was too hairy for mere trainees. I admit I'm somewhat proud of being able to say I've stowed one side of an upper topsail on my own in a Force 9 hailstorm at 2am in the North Atlantic
Note that a sea-stow is different to a harbour-stow (which I assume is the same as your "full stow"). Rather than neatly folding the whole sail and rolling it up onto the yard in one movement, we would start at the mast and move outward doing one gasket at a time, bundling the sail roughly into its double-thickness covering part and then moving onto the next. At the yard-arm do the clew gasket, then come back inboard tidying up the sail and re-doing each gasket a bit tighter. Strictly speaking we were only expected to lash it to the yard any old how, but as a matter of pride I would always try to get it properly on top of the yard and looking as much like a harbour stow as possible. Typically we'd do it with two people per side, but I've done it on my own more than once, when the only people allowed aloft were the three deckhands and the duty watch leader and we had to get both upper topsails in at once. You feel on top of the world when you come down
Pete
She was on passage to London, where she was commissioned today (by Princess Anne, who launched the original Royalist 44 years ago). She will now wear the defaced blue ensign of the SCC.
The final chapter.
Just found out that the original Royalist was scrapped at the Van Heyghen yard in Ghent in January. She arrived under her own power, sails still bent on and neatly stowed. According to a witness, "Royalist was proud and trim to the end. She looked as if she were on a routine mid-cruise call, not the end of the line. She looked no different than she did when I sailed on her in her early years."
A sad end: sounds like an old, loyal dog who had no idea she was being taken to the vets...
That's exactly how it felt on that trip.
She received her blue defaced on her commissioning
