Doug Thrift
Aboard 1970-1973 e-mail Dthriftusa@aol.com
Many good memories. I can still remember the smell of the rust we chipped away before painting to bring back their original beauty. TeVega sailed beautifully on a beam or broad reach, but could not point well. We could hardly point as high as the old square rigged shipps during the OP Sail race from Finland to Germany. A pleasure to sail her though. Does anyone know why TeVega's ship's bell was engraved with the name ETAK (Kate spelled backwards)? One of the first refurbishing projects we did on the TeQuest was the removal of the old DC power system. I'd been told that TeQuest was used as a battery powered patrol boat in W.W.II looking for submarines. I don't have any documentation to confirm that she actually chased subs. I do remember that when we commissioned her, we stripped out what seemed like miles of DC electric lines which were lead shielded, the DC auto pilot and what appeared to be old battery racks from the cargo hold. My personal memories are totally different than those experienced by the students. Especially the first years which required more refurbushing and repairs on the ships. Most of the crew were inexperienced and learned seamanship, navigation, maintenance and a little of the 4R's as a necessity. I would not trade the experience for any amount of "gold".
These images were taken of Te Vega & teQuest before Flint School officially went to sea. Doug has quite a few from the first day he reported to TeQuest. She was in dry dock at Ft. Lauderdale. You won't believe them when you see them. She had a bridge deck and cargo boom! The drydock pictures are of TeQuest in the ship yards at Ft. Lauderdale, late summer 1971. The gray scale image is of TeVega in 1969. There's also a one good picture of TeVega when she had a white hull, no sail numbers and no top masts. Te Vega has no topmasts, and her hull is white; teQuest had been a dc-powered (batteries!) sub chaser, as far as we know, in WW2.
|
Images provided by Doug Thrift
