Hi All,
One of the many readers who generally has too little time to write, but greatly enjoys the daily comments - but the note below brought a thought up. (As a short intro I am Dutch and have sailed mostly in around the North sea, the Dutch isles, our local lakes etc -Recently I have moved to the east coast in the US) Living in the Nl's actually gave me a chance to sail on Blind Date in Nov 2007. A fantastic boat, beautifully build, and quite an experience to sail a Harryproa. We had a 4 hour downwind sail on a winter morning - which was quite something else. If I remember correctly we did about 7-10 knots in 12-15 knots of wind. And this was probably the last sail before reconstruction started on the rudders.
Now as you may know Blind Date is built to charter/day sail with visually impaired people - but the foundation is always in need of funds - the amounts you are describing would get them quite a long way (at least it was when I left - I wanted to support them - both financially and as crew). You could consider setting up contact with them and see if they are interested for chartering. Probably also depends on when the rudders are ready but Rudolph could comment on that. The Netherlands may not have the weather of NZ/Aus but has some great scenery and unique tidal area's, beautifull former fishing towns, easy to get to, and good winds.
Fedor
Boston, MA
--- In harryproa@yahoogrou
>
> Hi,
> Well, we all know that I really want a harryproa, but my wife is totally
> against my building a boat she has never seen or sailed on. When I curb my
> enthusiasm, I can certainly see her point. I don't really know what the
> motion is like, I have never been able to get any kind of polar diagrams
> showing how she does on anything other than her best point of sail, etc.
>
> It seems that many people on this forum would probably be interested in
> trying out a harryproa. I was wondering if Rob could pass along a request to
> the new owners of "Rare Bird", to set up a charter operation for the boat,
> with obvious checks on the qualifications of potential charterers. Failing
> that, then perhaps Rob could consider chartering Solitarry, if and when
> funds become available to build it.
>
> For my own schedule, I will (hopefully) be starting a new job soon, and it
> is the end of the childrens summer vacation in the US. I am looking to see
> if we might be able to get anything together for June or July of 2010.
>
> From a financial perspective, a Maine Cat 30 charters in the Bahamas for
> about $3000/wk. It would seem that something like Rare Bird has roughly the
> same accomodations, but is larger. I would be willing to pay $4000 US for a
> weeks charter in the Great Barrier Reef. If you could get 10-12 people to
> charter one for a week, you have paid for the materials cost. That would be
> a great rate of return!
>
> Any takers?
>
> - Gardner
> York, PA
>
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