WindCheck Magazine Foxhounds and Feathered Friends

The Birds Aboard article by Dorothy Wadlow caught my eye. My friend with five others delivered his Oyster across the Atlantic from St. Maarten to Spain in order to do some cruising in the Med and Adriatic.

After a mixed sail and motoring some of the time, we picked up two pigeons off Madera. They settled on the rear deck and looked fatigued. We gave them water and crushed cereal as we had no bird food. They seemed to recover quite well as we had a spirited night thru’ the Strait of Gibraltar and they stuck around although we were in sight of land. We put into Marbella after severe rain storm and they seemed reluctant to leave. The next morning they both took off, but the one was having trouble and plunged into the marina water where several gulls attacked and killed it. The other one flew off without a problem.
Obviously, the one bird was not in a good state of health to begin with, but we were all upset about it.

I also enjoyed your mention of Ratsey & Lapthorn on City Island in connection with the City Island Nautical Museum. I knew Chris Ratsey when I had a house in Cowes years ago. I bought the sails for my first offshore boat that I built up using an Uffa Fox Foxhound hull for Junior Offshore Racing. This was in 1976 – ‘78. The bought did quite well in the Queen’s Jubilee Regattas in 1977, winning the Spencer Rigging trophy amongst other things. I knew Ratsey & Lapthorn’s sales manager, and we used to take out the J/24 they used for sail development on the Island Sailing Club’s Tuesday night races. They had a great reputation in Cowes when my fiend Andy Cassel was running it.