The Barque

LADY ELIZABETH

Richard Wood gives his views

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I typed in Cutty Sark to see if there was any new news about the old girl when I found the web sites about the City of Adelaide then I found some information about Lady Elizabeth I checked her out on Google Earth then I found your web site so I decided to write this email.

I’ve been thinking about this ship and where she is sitting and I’ve come up with two ways of saving her, the first would be to cut her into sections that could be winched ashore and then cutting her into her individual cross members, shipping them to where they would be cleaned, sand blasted, painted and put on display until somebody came up with a bag of money to rebuild the ship around them.

The safest and easiest way to cut her into sections would be to cut down the starboard side then remove the sand from that side and roll her into the ditch so you could cut through the keel and port side.

The second way would be to refloat her using pontoons sunk on both sides of her, cutting holes through the hull just below the stringers and poking steel beams through her onto the pontoons, refloat the pontoons and move her into deeper water once in deeper water she could be floated into a dry dock or onto a submersible ship and taken to a new home.

This ship is in an advanced state of decay so I think if she was taken away in one piece she would still have to be striped back to her bare frame anyway. A submersible ship would be very expensive! What do you think of my ideas?

Richard Wood
Safety Beach, Vic
1 May 2008