Posted by Bill Wallace-King on January 05, 2008 at 10:43:00 from 86.133.34.162 user Bill_Wallace.
In Reply to: Re: WDMTGTS questions, one fairly esoteric/nautical posted by Alex Forbes on January 05, 2008 at 01:23:50:
Alex
In answer to your questions:
1) It probably does swing around a bit, but its not been particularly noticeable or a problem to me. I wouldn't have it very loose anyway - just loose enough to allow the sail to support the boom and to take its correct shape. Nancy does have a further peculiarity relating to her topping lift - it runs though a block at the spreaders rather than at the masthead, so it crosses the sail, rather than being totally above it.
2) There is certainly no provision for hoisting a hard tender aboard now. With Nancy being only 28ft on deck, its very hard to see where a dinghy could be stowed. I have assisted Andrew Craig-Bennett hoist his small Nutshell dinghy onto the deck of his boat Mirelle using halyards etc, but she is significantly larger than Nancy. Ransome towed Nancy's tender, the "Queen Mary", on his swift cruise to Portsmouth in 1937. They put into Dover at night when it was "blowing pretty hard" and Ransome managed to wrap the dinghy's painter around the prop when setting the anchor under power.