A long time ago, I made the treck to Newcastle to take a look at a twelve. More accurately, I made my father drive me to Newcastle so I could look at a twelve. I think I must have been 12 or 13 at the time. Against his advice, we left Newcastle with a boat in tow. Something along the lines of "It's my money so I'll buy the boat I want" (I'd made a ton of money over the winter shoveling drives in Buxton). Long story short, he was right, I was wrong as evidenced the first time out when I capsized. You could see daylight through the hull - never a good sign.
We dutifully started the restoration process. i lost interest after approximately 47 minutes. One bitter winter later, my American Pie was a nice shade of blue and ready for the fun part of rigging it. I enjoyed many a season racing her after that restoration until plastic boats got the better of me and I went the wrong side of 13st to skipper a 12. I must admit, in all of my sailing, nothing has really comapred to a 12. It's just a shame the class never made it to the states.
Anyway, the reason for my nostalgia is that I was going through some of my parent's stuff recently and stumbled upon a serious amount of photographs some of which are of the restoration. If the latest owner is interested in seeing some of these, I'd love to share them with you, whoever you are out there!
We dutifully started the restoration process. i lost interest after approximately 47 minutes. One bitter winter later, my American Pie was a nice shade of blue and ready for the fun part of rigging it. I enjoyed many a season racing her after that restoration until plastic boats got the better of me and I went the wrong side of 13st to skipper a 12. I must admit, in all of my sailing, nothing has really comapred to a 12. It's just a shame the class never made it to the states.
Anyway, the reason for my nostalgia is that I was going through some of my parent's stuff recently and stumbled upon a serious amount of photographs some of which are of the restoration. If the latest owner is interested in seeing some of these, I'd love to share them with you, whoever you are out there!