Weybridge Mariners Sunday morning speakerSix Albany members attended the Sunday morning speaker event held by WMC at their clubhouse on 1st Feb. The club opened at 10.30am and the talk, entitled “The loss of Malaysian Airways Flight MH370” was presented by Ian Gilbert CEng, MRAeS, a prominent aerospace engineer who has been involved with, and given evidence to, a number of air accident enquiries. Ian pulled no punches in describing the cause of the loss as a murder/ suicide, most likely carried out by the captain of the aircraft - a truly sobering thought. Ian presented compelling evidence in considerable detail to support this proposition. The search for the wreckage of MH370 continues to this day, but it was Ian’s view that it will only be found with a large degree of luck, as the search area in the Southern Ocean is so vast. The captain of the flight clearly knew what he was doing and had no intention of the aircraft ever being found.
The talk was followed by an excellent buffet lunch. Thanks to Mandy, once again, for her catering expertise.
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Joint social meeting organised by PHYC and held at the club on 26th January.On Monday 26th January, eight Albany members attended PHYC’s inter-club social evening in the clubhouse at Penton Hook Marina, with a guest speaker, John Tough. John is the grandson of Douglas Tough who, with his brother Gordon, founded the former Tough’s Boatyard at Teddington in the early 1900s. In May 1940 Douglas Tough famously mobilised around 100 little ships for Operation Dynamo, which helped rescue over 385,000 soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk. Teams of Tough’s workers travelled along the south coast to repair damaged boats, and the boatyard built vessels for the fire service that were using during the Blitz on London’s docks. During the second world war, Tough’s built motor gun boats and motor torpedo boats and afterwards many types of small boats, cruisers and motor yachts. Following Douglas’ death in the 1950s the business passed to his son Robert, John Tough’s father. In 1954 Bob Tough worked on the design of the Havengore, for the Port of London Authority, the vessel used to transport Winston Churchill’s coffin along the Thames and watched by 350 million people across the world. In the 1980s one of Tough’s last boats to be built was a 150-foot yacht called Brave Goose for Sir Donald Gosling, launched in April 1986. By the 1990s the boatyard was in decline, with Bob Tough eventually retiring in 2006, and the yard was redeveloped into offices and apartments. John is now Honorary Archivist of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships and the owner of the Little Ship Thamesa.
John’s talk was most interesting and was very well received. Mark, as always, provided an excellent menu. The meeting was very well attended and proved a good opportunity for inter-club networking. (Tony & John made a point of re-connecting with Andy Wilson, present Commodore of Upper Thames MYC, and asked whether Albany boats could moor at their clubhouse in Sonning in July. Andy agreed in principle, but we will have to alter the date of our cruise to Sonning Theatre as UTMYC are hosting PHYC on the weekend of 24th-25th July.) |
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