Coral of Cowes and quiet days in Grenada

I had used a picture of the classic yacht called Coral of Cowes in a post and was contacted by the great grandson of some who had been the professional skipper of the elegant edwardian piece of sailing history.

The internet is making the world a very small place.

Anyway they are asking for more pics and having got the OK from the current professional crew [ thanks Paul ] here they are along with some stats.


DESIGNER Fred Shepherd BUILDER White Bros Southampton UK
DATE 1902 LOA 96ft / 29 m incl spars
LWL 64 ft / 19.5 m BEAM 15 ft 5 ins/ 4.6 m
DISPLACEMENT 68 tons DRAFT 11 ft / 3.3m
CONSTRUCTION Hardwood plank on oak and Iroko frames
ENGINE 200 HP Volvo turbo diesel

History

CORAL was registered in Cowes and spent the first 36 years of her life racing under the Royal Yacht Squadron burgee, Her real heyday came with some maturity at around 30 years old and her much coveted trophies include Winner of the King’s Cup in 1926 and 1928. She came 3rd in the 1932 Queen Mary’s Cup then going on to win it in 1934.

She had been built by White Brothers of Southampton in 1902 to Lloyds 100 A1 + standards. Not only were the finest materials used but every design detail checked against those stringent requirements at all stages of construction. Her massive construction was indeed unusual for a yacht designed – originally as a yawl - to be raced in the Solent. Nevertheless that very high standard and resultant strength have undoubtedly contributed to her remarkable state of preservation as much that pre war she was routinely dry docked for the winter.

During the 2nd World War she was laid up so that her 25 ton lead keel could be removed for the metal so essential to the war effort.

QUIET DAYS

It has been quiet here in Grenada and I have been having a lazy time of it exploring the little bays and seeing what the many reefs that speckle this area hold in the way of fish.

I have also been tinkering around with three things that interest me; poker,computer programs and fuzzy logic.





I have made a little money playing poker on the internet at low stakes, I much prefer live poker so grinding away playing 4 tables at the same time on the internet quickly became boring. However I had worked on a poker playing program, not something I programmed from scratch but one that is available with the source code so I could modify it and it is doing ok playing on one of the poker sites that uses play money and it is doing OK. Profit over $135 million so far.

Maybe I should let it out onto one of the sites that uses real money?

Or maybe I should just watch the sun set over the Caribbean while sipping a cold G&T.