RE: Books (continued) boo-boo; screw-up; ERROR

From: Thomas Grimes (tgrimes@gw.bsu.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 27 2000 - 06:17:45 PST


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
        West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
                dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
           List hosted by www.tscnet.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I erred in my comment on Hugo Vihlen's book.

FATHER'S DAY, the boat in which Hugo Vihlen set the record in 1993
for the smallest boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean west to east, ST.
Johns, Newfoundland to Falmouth, England, was five (5) feet four (4)
inches in length, not four feet something, as I stated. I do not know
whether this record has been broken.

Vihlen also set a record in 1968 for the smallest boat to cross the
Atlantic east to west, Casablanca to Florida, in APRIL FOOL, six (6)
feet over all. This record stood until the early '90's but has since
been broken.

I enjoyed reading Vihlen's book and have great respect for the man,
and I think that I would enjoy knowing him if I had the chance to meet
him. I have great respect for the record that he set.

That said, I consider what he did as a stunt, for the specific
purpose of setting the record, and not a sailing voyage as such. I
base that conclusion on Vihlen's statement that he sailed FATHER'S DAY
downwind only, furling his sail if the wind was against him and
proceeding eastward at the approximately two knot speed of the Nort
Atlantic Drift. In contrast, Manry's TINKERBELLE and Speiss' ISLAND
GIRL were capable of all points of sail and were sailed as normal
small boats.

Regards (and apologies again for the error)

Tom Grimes
P-14 #363 Far Horizon
Muncie, Indiana



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 31 2000 - 03:27:09 PST