The life of N3167 Tsunami. Design: Baggy Trousers, designed by: Robert Peebles in 1980
From Ken Goddard
Somebody ought to write the early history of "Tsunami".
All I can tell you is that the boat was sailed at Trent Valley
for a few years in the late 1990's(?) by James Tilley. He took
her to a number of Open Meetings and generally sailed her
very well. I might be able to find the dates for this spell of
ownership.
Ken Goddard
In 1994 I purchased the boat from John Tilley of Whitwick whose son James had taken a job abroad. I was told by Kevan Bloor that the boat was very fast and would be a much better boat for us than the Paper Dart that we had at the time 2710 Origami.
It came from a mould of Bicycle Clips 3162 which was also a quick boat.
Straight away the boat was more stable and to us it was like the QE2 in comparison to the Paper Dart. My son & I sailed it at Ogston Reservoir in Derbyshire for about a year before moving to Notts County Sailing Club where there were other Twelves sailing. Unfortunately our timing was off (around 1995) & Peter Shore who was sailing twelves at NCSC had or was about to sell his twelve & move to the Flying Fifteen fleet. Nevertheless we had a few good seasons sailing her some days the weather really suited her & we did very well, sailing through most of the enterprise fleet before the end of the race.
I moved to North Wales in 2001 & my Wife & I sailed her at Llandudno Bay then Llanfairfechan & then Llyn Brenig before giving up altogether & selling her today 7/6/2009.
We suffered a mishap at Llanfairfechan attempting to launch with too much waves & swell which Brian Herring of Dinghy Craft repaired for us. Since then she has had the hull stripped & refurbished with two pack & varnish. Thats the condition she is in today as we wave goodbye to her.
The new owners are Russ Hopkins & family they sail at Tewkesbury, may we wish them well with her and I hope they have as much fun as we have had over the years.
Built in Dobson's yard at Sawley by Nigel for David Lyddington who initially sailed her at Rugby from memory. She was by a very long way the prettiest of cold moulded Bagggies. Other boats that came out of that temporary workshop at the time included "42" =3111 also Bicycle Clips 3162. I think Tsunami was triple planked and not sheathed whereas the other boats were double planked, hand faired and then had a thin layer of glass layed over the outside.
She also was built with cappings all over the place like a Rowsell merlin of the time because David, a Merlin sailor didn't want any visible end-grain.
All the other boats were Obeche - a paler, softer and lighter wood than that used on Tsunami which I think was Khaya.
Hope that adds a bit of earlier background.
Current Picture of Tsunami. She is currently under going some much needed TLC, as well as a full refit/ rerig. I will post some more pics of her finished in a few weeks. Hopefully with some new rags!