Recidivist

Mai Tai not for sale. It has had a chequered history since coming to Darwin. The then owner built a god pod on it and sailed her in the Darwin Ambon race, taking line honours but breaking apart on the way home - the crew rescued by a freighter and taken to China. She washed up on an island and Col and a mate went and rescued her, sailing home lashed together with ropes and duct tape. She was then sold to a bloke I never met, who removed the god pod but never sailed her. A couple of my mates then bought her and spent a lot of money fairing and fixing her while they also owned an improved GBE. They split the partnership and one of them finished Mai Tai and now has her sailing and looking good. Incidentally, I helped a mate build the GBE ("Ghost") many years ago. One hull was the standard moulded hull, then modified for a more plumb bow, less rocker and vertical foils. My understanding was that a new mould was taken from this hull and the other hull came from that mould. It was much improved and with a tall rig this thing went like a bat out of hell. But (again, my understanding was) there was a fire, the new mould was destroyed and no other "improved" GBEs were built - the builder concentrating thereafter on the "Sport Deck" models. However, just a week ago, I spotted a "Ghost" model GBE on the Noosa River - not a Sport Deck, but definitely the Ghost hulls (but vertical rudders and the original swept boards), but with a standard height rig. The GBE (ex Ghost, now Ms Palmer) has just changed hands again - I was going to go halves in it with a friend a year ago, but he never followed through. With a young(ish) keen owner, she will be flashing around Darwin harbour for years to come.

Pretty sure it was launched as "Farrawa". I trieed to find a photo of the cockpit, but they've been taken down. The standard cockpit for the 2 tonners had moulded in lifering "pockets", but we changed the cockpit on one boat - pretty sure that was Farrawa. Twin companionways also rings a bell.

My fault? How so? You may have missed the "land down under" in my location?

How fucking stupid do you have to be to not realise how fucking stupid that statement was? Please tell me this was a piss-take? Please ...

Great stuff Sleddog! You should have seen the amount of grog we had on board when we left Hobart! Did you see the 2 schools of Orcas - one each side of the river? Just before the change of course, probably why we didn't see it coming! And, while the later production GRP version of Tequila was 45', she was only 43' with the transom scoop. A bloke in Auckland loved Tequila's shape, but wanted to build it in steel. Paul was embarrassed to work out the scantlings and discover the steel boat would be lighter! That was a great trip - we had been sailing for 5 days before I realised we had to go around Cape Reianga - I thought we were heading to Manukau!

No, I sailed down on Anaconda and jumped aboard Tequila in Hobart because D'Arcy needed someone to drink with! We had Paul and the 2 Prior brothers, and at 23 I was the oldest but for D'Arcy. I remember seeing Inca come into Auckland missing great patches of paint! Those beautiful, latest and greatest S&S 45' alloy yachts were beaten by 2 wooden warhorses!

Raced against Improbable in the 74 Hobart-Auckland race. Blew like hell! Improbable beat us (Tequila - Paul Whiting's family's boat) home because our skipper D'Arcy didn't know how to plot a great circle course, so we sailed a few extra miles. IIRC the tiller on Improbable was 6' long! An iconic boat Haji, hope you can keep her in the family. Sorry to hear of your father's passing.

You just happened to have this video to hand? WFD! And thanks for the Tracy pics Hobot. Cheers

Our version solved the first B, after that I remembered that colourwise, brown is near to black, and blue and violet are close. Colour groupings for cabling was another - IIRC, Blue, orange, green, brown black with white mate, then blue/white, orange/white, green/white, brown/white, black/white with white mate, repeat with yellow mate, but after that is lost ... And then there were capacitors ...

Sorry, duplicate post.

I was taught "Black bastard rooted our young girl, bloody virginity gone west". I haven't used it in about 40 years!

I don't know how true it is, but a guide in Cambodia told me that 1.7 million tons of bombs were dropped in WW II - total. Yet, in one year, USA dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Cambodia - a country with which the US was not at war!

Not the same design as Dynamite (as DD says, D had the 2 stage transom, Farrawa was a single slab transom like Red Lion). Dynamite was built for Paul White, ex Darwin bloke, who sailed her to Hobart a couple of times.

Pretty sure Farrawa wasn't built by Binks. IIRC she was one of 3 or 4 Farr 2 tonners that I helped build in the old Navy shed in Jenkins Street, Birkenhead. They were good looking boats.

Dear Ma and Pa: I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing. Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there’s warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much. We go on “route marches,” which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it’s not my place to tell him different. A “route march” is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don’t bother you none. This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don’t know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don’t move, and it ain’t shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don’t even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes. Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain’t like fighting with that ole bull at home. I’m about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake . I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I’m only 5’6″ and 130 pounds and he’s 6’8″ and near 300 pounds dry. Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in. Your loving daughter, Alice