Digby taylor passed away

[philstar 62]

Sad

[tuffyluffy 76]

Oh what a shame.

 

I remember meeting him as a kid when he was building NZ Endeavour (?) in a shed in Port Chalmers

[kiwi_jon 27]

^

 

NZI Enterpise

 

NZ Endeavour was Dalts entry in the 93/94 Whitbread.

 

Sad to hear about Digby Taylor

[Jonquil 550]

Enterprise was built in Auckland. I recall seeing the half built shell at the Boatshow. (we had just visited Lion being built)

 

Might have been Outward Bound

 

Nice guy that did a great job on Outward Bound but never had the coins to take on the big boat.

[tuffyluffy 76]

Heres the old thread on Outward Bound

 

http://crew.org.nz/forum/index.php/topic/9936-outward-bound/

[Island Time 1,351]

[Straight Laced 18]

Sad to hear.

We only crossed paths a few times, but he wasn't scared to give it a go, whether it was a good idea or not. He had a 1/2 tonner called Delphin, which he took to Noumea in 1980 and did very well. He announced on 1 very drunken night while up there that he was building a boat to go in the next Whitbread, of course nobody believed him, but Outward Bound was launched about 6 months later and the rest is history. He told me a story one night after that race, where they got stuck on the wrong side of a weather system in the Southern Ocean and got so far south that everything froze up. They couldn't reef or do anything to get back north until they could unfreeze the winches, which took nearly all their gas supplies to boil water to pour over them.

 

If my dodgy memory serves me correctly, he came up with a very unique way of building NZI. The ring frames were included in the plug mould and they built a gantry to hold a series of bobbins loaded with pre preg thread that criscrossed all over the plug and wove the cloth in place to form a monocoque internal shell. Unfortunately money let him down on that project, which ultimately led to the demise of the campaign.

[raz88 98]

That's a shame. He's a distant relative of my family and my father did a bit of racing with him back in the day. they've lost touch over the years though. Sorry to hear.