Nick Gardner wrote:

On 22/06/2018 17:23, Graham Easterling wrote:
It used to be a major issue on Scilly. It got to the state where 1
year they had to import water from Penzance on the Scillonian III.

They've now got a desalination plant, the output of which they mix
roughly 50/50 with the ground water supply.

Is the desalinated water fit for drinking?

I was on Scilly in July 1989 and I believe they were starting to
import water during that hot summer. There were notices everywhere
begging the tourist to restrict water use. The islands were super
parched.

One of the mornings I was there, the people of St Mary (plus tourists
like myself) awoke with the biggest hangover in history. They'd just
celebrated the Gentry Eagle winning the Virgin Atlantic Challenge
Trophy. The boat was in the habour and we all got to have a little
trip in it. Richard Branson put on a big party and why would you
refuse free booze. I was only a t'young lad.


I did the weather forecasting for that trip and for the same boat's
attempt the previous year. For the 1988 attempt I was based in
Greenwich, Connecticut. We waited a month for even a hint of a weather
window. I had a number of trips on the boat during that month. Quite
exhilerating thrashing along Long Island Sound at 60 knots! They
eventually decided to make the attempt in very marginal weather but the
boat began to suffer in the relatively rough seas and they packed it in
about halfway across. For the successful 1989 attempt I was able to
route them along the axis of an elongated ridge of high pressure for
most of the way across. They had a trouble-free crossing and and beat
Richard Branson's record easily.

Unfortunately, Tom Gentry had a serious accident in a powerboat race in
1994. He wasn't breathing when he was pulled from the water and was
kept alive for several years in a vegetative state. He never recovered
and died in 1998.

There's a video about the Gentry Eagle at

https://youtu.be/O-c5CuQTKbI

It brings back lots of happy memories for me!


--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.
https://peakdistrictweather.org
Twitter: @TideswellWeathr