CT249
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 2, 2003
- Messages
- 1,640
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- Location
- Sydney Australia
I've read it "Common Sense". The writing he did was Common Sense and other works. His private letters to various people, collected over many years, are on the Mystic Museum site.
At no stage did I find any reference to a "major" cruise, even by the comparatively modest standards of the time. I think he may have sailed to Maine and back. At other times, he finds a trip to Martha's Vineyard or somewhere similar to be worth a fairly detailed description. It wasn't as if he was an Alain Gerbault, Maurice Griffiths, etc style of dedicated and highly experienced cruiser.
Similarly, I can find no record of him having a really high-level racing career. I think he spent a season on Avenger, which was top of its class around LIS. He didn't, for example, win a Transatlantic, Bermuda or America's Cup like Rod Stephens or John Alden, or cruise to Norway, sail the Atlantic and win lots of dinghy and class races like Uffa Fox.
The point is that while he was a very interesting man, he doesn't seem to have had as much actual time on the water racing or cruising as many of his modern readers, or most of his rival designers. Since he didn't have a vast amount of experience like, for example, Rod Stephens did, a significant number of his beliefs are open to question.
I, for one, find a vast difference between a boat in which one can stand up down below, even if only in a small area, and one with only sitting headroom. When Francis makes his blanket statements he doesn't allow for the different tastes of others, even those with far more experience in some areas than he had.
Oh, and given the insults that LFH threw around so readily in his private and published work, it's perfectly reasonable to express reservations about what he wrote himself.
At no stage did I find any reference to a "major" cruise, even by the comparatively modest standards of the time. I think he may have sailed to Maine and back. At other times, he finds a trip to Martha's Vineyard or somewhere similar to be worth a fairly detailed description. It wasn't as if he was an Alain Gerbault, Maurice Griffiths, etc style of dedicated and highly experienced cruiser.
Similarly, I can find no record of him having a really high-level racing career. I think he spent a season on Avenger, which was top of its class around LIS. He didn't, for example, win a Transatlantic, Bermuda or America's Cup like Rod Stephens or John Alden, or cruise to Norway, sail the Atlantic and win lots of dinghy and class races like Uffa Fox.
The point is that while he was a very interesting man, he doesn't seem to have had as much actual time on the water racing or cruising as many of his modern readers, or most of his rival designers. Since he didn't have a vast amount of experience like, for example, Rod Stephens did, a significant number of his beliefs are open to question.
I, for one, find a vast difference between a boat in which one can stand up down below, even if only in a small area, and one with only sitting headroom. When Francis makes his blanket statements he doesn't allow for the different tastes of others, even those with far more experience in some areas than he had.
Oh, and given the insults that LFH threw around so readily in his private and published work, it's perfectly reasonable to express reservations about what he wrote himself.