Hilary Listers Round Britain preparations well underway
by Hilary Lister 26 Mar 2009 22:37 AEDT
First of all let me apologise for the long silence. Things are now beginning to move with alarming speed once again, which is probably a good thing although a little frightening!
Preparations for this year's sail are now well underway. The boats have been spruced up and the RIB is being serviced, although we're still looking for someone who knows the inside of a "Mermaid" tractor engine inside out. Generally I suspect that Toby is being his usual perfectionist self, rather than letting anything slip past him, which is a good thing. Thanks to two extremely generous friends they have overwintered in a barn, along with the "boys van" and the Land Rover. We started off asking for space for the boats ... we've now taken over two barns and quite a lot of parking space! Paul Taroni has spent the last 2 weeks helping Toby in the barn and I know he's really helped put some momentum back into the project after a tough winter.
Huge thanks also have to go to BTS. Both "Daves" opened up their very busy fibreglass and printing unit during the worst of the weather so that we could fix a few problems we had last year and get into the warm. They were, as ever, wonderfully welcoming and extremely generous. They didn't even bat an eyelid when the keel toppled onto one of their un-mendable creations. They also printed many of the hull stickers for and helped get "Me Too" into boat show condition.
Viv Thompson has worked his magic on the jib boom so that it now swings freely. The whole job involved some really high-tech solutions, such as planing down the inside piece by just 1 mm to remove the corrosion, and some really low-tech solutions, like using a mountain bike inner tyre to seal up the holes which let the seawater in!
The charity, "Hilary's Dream Trust" seems to be taking on a life of its own, which is wonderful to see. We've had some teething problems getting everything transferred over to the new team, but we are almost there at last. The new directors are, as they say on all the best TV programmes, in no particular order: Kim Faulkner (secretary), David Pearson (Financial Director, also FD of the Round Britain Dream) and Clifford Lister (chair). Tony Leppard did a great job last year, running everything from home, but has decided to take a back seat this time. He will be missed, but our new trustees are all looking forward to the challenge of helping to run this year's RBD.
More information on www.hilarylister.com