Out and about.
Oriole
Sat 22 Jan 2011 22:29
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Deep Bay, NW Antigua 17:07.67N
61:53.22W
There is always someone worse off
than you - well usually. While we were successfully wrestling with
recalcitrant inflexible exhaust pipes under the cabin floor a friend had found
four gallons of water in his diesel tank. Diesel engines do not like being
given water to fuel them but he was lucky that none got through to the engine
but getting it out of the tank together with all the other crud has not proved
an easy job. But success is on the way.
If forty feet
of Oriole produces lots of problems imagine what 300 feet of steam
yacht built in 1930 can throw up. While we were on the dock sorting out
our exhaust the most beautiful Edwardian steam yacht Nahlin berthed
close by. No-one ever will ever tell you who owns
these wonderful craft but a quick perusal of Google has thrown up her
history. Built in 1930 by John Brown in Glasgow for a jute millionairess,
she was chartered by King Edward V111 for his somewhat controversial cruise
around Eastern Europe in 1936 with Wallace Simpson just before he
abdicated. Later bought by King Carol of Romania she ended up as a
restaurant ship on the Danube and somehow managed to survive the communist
era. She was acquired by a yacht broking RCC member and has finally
been extensively restored under the ownership of none other than the famous
vacuum cleaner inventor Sir James Dyson. She is still steam driven and was
seen in Dartmouth, Devon in July. A regular visitor to Falmouth
Antigua is another Edwardian motor yacht Talitha G who shared this
anchorage with us yesterday. She was also built in 1930 and is owned by the
Getty family and had an extensive refit in Devonport Dockyard where
she emerged in 1993 in pristine condition. The extraordinary 250 foot
sailing yacht Mirabella V on which our son Andrew was mate and the
equally extraordinary 280 foot Maltese Falcon have also been in
Falmouth this week.
 . 
Sir James Dyson's Nahlin gracing the dock in
Falmouth. Talitha
G in Deep Bay, Antigua moments before the sun set with a green
flash.
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