Thanks Mike
The very good news on Surfury is that her future and display is now permanently assured as both The Motor Boat Museum at Basildon and now the Classic Boat Museum at Cowes are both able to offer her a permanent home. The recent article and photo in the Isle of Wight County Press generated a large amount of interest and responses to the website
www.surfury.co.uk offered support for her long term relocation to the Island. Naturaly I reccomended that if they wished to then to contact the NMM direct. Last Friday I received a phone call from Simon Stevens at the NMM to ask as to whether I knew why he was getting so many EMails about "Surfury"!
It is understood the the Gardner family as well as stakeholders from her past such as Ivor Verlander and Ian Dunford (her race mechanics) have also expressed a wish to see her returned to the Island.
The overall result is that Surfury now has two potential homes for her to be displayed and that there is no threat to her being put into a long term storage facility where she would end up decaying and forgotten. No matter of the outcome, we must respect Basildon and Julie Graham who has always wanted Surfury to remain in their display.
The case of Surfury was one of the reasons that helped to form the Classic Offshore Powerboat Owners Association and she will become one of a number of principle projects of COPOA to support the management to restore her and then hopefully, one day, return her to running (not race) order.
One of the the other agreed objectives of COPOA is to establish as to how many (or few) of the classic racing craft remain, their current position and also the fate of the many iconic craft that are no longer with us. If anybody has information or photos that can be used please contact me on
chris.grayer@btinternet.com and in my role of "Registrar" for COPOA I will capture and utilise it.
Many thanks to you all who have participated in the campaign to save Surfury, it is your perpetual enthusiasm that has made the difference. I now know she is no longer in the NMM category of "forgotten and nobody cares" to that of "loads of interest and lots of people care" category.
Once again many thanks to you all - it is you and your perpetual enthusiasm that has made the difference
Chris
PS I have a copy of the article if any body still wants it!