CODBLOG13: A VIP Visit

Last year, when this Centenary Project got started and we were arranging to move Kandahar from Gallows Point, Beaumaris to the workshop “tent” I received a letter from a Mrs Rosemary Asher who lives in the Isle of Wight. Mrs Asher’s grandson had uncovered some old trophies in her attic and she rembered that her father “had won them at Conwy sailing his One-design boat called Kandahar”.

What a coincidence!

I checked our records and, sure enough, her father Clive Preston and his friend Ralph Morgan had been the first owners of Kandahar back in 1930 and their names are on our trophy boards in the Club.

I wrote back to Mrs Asher and told her what we were doing and enclosed a recent photo of Kandahar. I could just imagine her surprise at finding out that the boat had actually survived all these years, let alone was the focus of a restoration project!

I naturally invited her up to see the project and her father’s old boat. Last month she and her husband, Andrew, revisited North Wales and joined us at the Club for the “Last Night of the Proms” evening. On the following Monday they visited the Workshop. It felt a bit like having a Royal Visit! Thankfully, they were impressed with the progress (on Gwalch not Kandahar yet) and we look forward to repeat visits and, with a little luck seeing Kandahar back on the water.