Can you help to save Lively Lady?

by Barry Pickthall on 29 May 2009
The June issue of Boat News, highlights the sorry story of Lively Lady, the iconic yacht that pioneer sailor Sir Alec Rose, sailed solo around the world back in 1968. The famous yacht has been the subject of a legal dispute since completing a second highly publicised circumnavigation in 2005.

Held by Hayling Yacht Company, the yard that carried out restoration work on the yacht prior to her last voyage, in lieu of a £7,000 debt owed by the charity that controls her, Lively Lady is in grave danger of rotting beyond economic repair this summer, unless Portsmouth City Council, the yacht's owner, move now to reclaim one of the City's best-known icons.

Boat News has set up an email petition, calling on Portsmouth City Councillors to reclaim the yacht and have her restored on - info@boat-news.co.uk

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who followed in Lively Lady's wake to become the first person to sail solo, non-stop around the world a year after Rose, is one of the first to join the campaign. He says:

'Lively Lady is an important part of Britain’s maritime heritage, a reminder of the pathfinding days when an unassuming greengrocer could go out and achieve great things because he believed in himself. Lively Lady should be looked after properly. The longer she is left untended, the worse the problems will become and the more expensive she will be to restore.’