Hi! I live in
England and a friend who has seen the boat pictures wonders if the boat is still available. If it is available the man wonders whether the boat could be fitted into a
shipping container and shipped. An old colleague "Captain Bligh" is a genius at doing this as he gets special cradles built that tilt the boat over so that it fits. Last year he shipped a thirty foot
catamaran to
New Zealand after the boat's owner just couldn't face sailing back to NZ from the
Caribbean. Two cradles had to be built that fitted the two hulls into one container although one
hull had to go in upside down. Just where
Captain Bligh is at the moment I don't know as he always seems to keep moving around the
Caribbean as his tourist visas expire! (As he says "If you are still there when your Visa expires you become an Illegal Immigrant which makes you a criminal!")
Anyhow Robert who is a good
carpenter is quite keen on the Eric 32 as he knows the model well. There is actually an unfinished Eric 32
for sale at Cardiff Marina that was built by two brothers. They spent most of their lives building it but one brother died then the other brother got too old and tired to complete the boat. It is fairly complete but rain-water keeps running out of the joint between the iron
keel and the
hull. This does not bode well for the boat staying afloat!
The Robin Knox Johnson Eric 32 which was built in
India is probably one of the best examples as she was built from Indian Ironwood (some kind of very hard
Teak which is unpalatable to worms?) Allegedly six Indian shipwrights spent a year building her and allegedly the planks were keyed together with "biscuits". Most Eric 32s seem to be built from Mahogany however and some versions have thinner planks and thinner timbers than others presumably to save costs in countries where
wood is expensive.
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