100 year celebrations for Eye of the Wind

Fellow Friends of the Eye,
As most of you must be aware, 2011 is fast approaching, and it will be 100 years since 'Eye of the Wind' (Freidrick) was launched at C Luhrings yard at Brake, Germany.

I have been contacted by various people to ascertain what we can do to celebrate this momentous achievement,and would like to put forward a couple of ideas and gather people's response.

Obviously, as we do not own the ship any more, our options are in the hands of the new owners, who seem to be very co-operative and interested in this 100 year celebration. At this stage we are just trying to gauge people's interest, and obviously there is a lot more organizing to be done, and we will not be able to acommodate everyone's wishes.

The first plan is:
a get together at the Tasmanian Wooden Boat Festival which is usually the first weekend in February for the many people who have sailed on the ship to Port Davey and around the Tassie coast a get together and hopefully a sail on Sydney Harbour on 'Svannen' in the Australian summer (March-April) and a few other social events for the weekend a get together in perhaps Faversham for a weekend in June/July/August which would be the most inclusive option we can think of for everyone in the UK Depending on what the new owners' itinerary is, we could possibly have a few short voyages afterwards, sailing either in the Baltic or UK for those that would like to sail on the ship once more. This would obviously depend on availability and price, and at this stage we have not firmed up any arrangements with them.

We envisage that every one of these gatherings would allow past voyagers and crew to perhaps show their photos, catch up with old friends, and toast the 100 year achievement. As it is 30 years in December this year that EOTW sailed under London Bridge at the completion of Op Drake, perhaps this is a good opportunity to combine it all.

Obviously these are very early days, but will hopefully give everyone food for thought - if anyone else has any ideas, we would be open to any suggestions. As the ship now only caters for 16 voyage crew we thought that a gathering of souls would perhaps be the best option. We may be lucky and have the ship alongside or perhaps be able to do a day sail for those in the UK

I would appreciate people indicating their interest, so we can start to formulate a plan.

We personally feel that the ship brought us into contact with so many wonderful people that have provided deep friendships over the years, that we would like to acknowledge her momentous achievement, and pay tribute to all those people who made her 100 year benchmark a reality.

Kind regards, Tiger

Remark by Ina: If you are interested and would like to make yourself known, click here to contact me and get forwarded.
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