After the initial shock at the news, various members of the Albert Strange Association management committee exchanged numerous emails about the predicament. Ideas abounded, but communication by email has its limitations.
On the fifth February 2017, five members of the Albert Strange Association committee met in a dining room in Forest Hill, London. Physically present Were Dick Wynne, Jamie Clay and Gordon Scott. Present in spirit and by Skype, where Thad Danielson (in Marblehead) and Russell Read, in Buckinghamshire, England, staying away only because of a nasty cold that he didn't want to share.
Our agenda was simple. In essence:
Do we go ahead and try the rescue?
If the answer is yes, what do we do and who does it?
The answer to the first question, which we revisited several times through the meeting, remained yes!
The answers to the second question are many and varied, but we have a good start with increased publicity for Tally Ho's plight, through this web page and through Facebook. We plan soon to start a crowd-funding page and have investigations started into rewards for donations, though at this stage, at least, sadly we can't offer sailing on Tally Ho. We do however have a number of excellent ideas for those rewards.
We also have a good list of people who may help, with advice, publicity, patronage, funding, assistance and so on.
The feeling amongst all of us was that the distance between Tally Ho and Britain was a major hurdle and that our first task should be to try to bring Tally Ho back home to Britain where she was conceived and built. She is a beautiful classic British yacht, by a very skillful British designer and with a significant British heritage.
However she also has a significant history, notably in Brookings itself, where she was a trolling fishing boat for fifteen years.
Our mission is to rescue Tally Ho, restore her and bring her back from near death to health.
Please Help Us To Do That.