Lively Lady delays plans for Portsmouth children
Organisers of a round-UK trip on the Lively Lady have said they’re heartbroken to have delayed the voyage, which was due to set sail in 2021.
The 36ft boat was made famous by the late Southsea greengrocer Sir Alec Rose, who completed his single-handed trip around the world on her on July 4, 1968.
A spokesman for Around and Around, the charity now tending to the vessel, said the coronavirus pandemic had delayed a proposal for a new UK tour by ‘at least a year’.
“The idea was that for 2020 they would do training voyages and start getting a young crew together,” Alistair Thompson, who represents Around and Around, told the Portsmouth News.
“Then they were going to sail around the UK next year. But that’s completely gone by-the-by because of Covid.
“You can’t get into schools, you can’t train in close proximity with people, so I doubt this will all start until probably late summer 2021.”
The initiative was intended to mirror a similar one carried out in the late 2000s, which involved a number of young people from Portsmouth.
Between 2006 and 2008, Lively Lady sailed across the world, this time crewed by a group of 38 disadvantaged youngsters. She was extensively refurbished with a record of her progress kept on epoxycraft.
