The Tenacious Refurbishment Appeal
More than 10,000 people have now had the opportunity of sailing on our tall ship Tenacious since she was launched twelve years ago. It will soon be time for her to start a three year programme of refurbishment. Phase 1 will see her come into dry dock in late 2012 for the first batch of work to be undertaken. The refit will mean she can continue her great work – we are proud that JST’s ships are the only tall ships in the world designed and built to enable people of all physical abilities to sail side by side as equals.
After Phase 1 has been completed, we intend to start work on the long list of other upgrades we would love to do to Tenacious as part of her three year programme of refurbishment. Some are high priority while others are desirable but not essential (yet). One of our priorities is to upgrade the internal and external wheelchair lifts, at a cost of £3,000 and £5,000 respectively. If you’d like to see details of later phases, do get in touch – it’s all a bit too lengthy to set out here.
It has always been a great challenge for us to raise funds where an appeal is raising funds to upgrade our ships because while out of the water and being refurbished they're obviously not taking people out on fun sailing voyages. These sorts of appeals just don’t capture the imagination in the way other appeals might. That said, we love a challenge here at JST!
We’re trying to convey to all our supporters that without undertaking necessary refurbishment, we would ultimately be unable to carry on JST’s work of providing a life-changing experience to as many people as possible through the adventure of tall ship sailing. We also want our ships be as reliable and environmental as possible, and to have top notch facilities onboard for our voyage crew. When we say we're looking to refurbish Tenacious, we’re not talking about putting a jacuzzi on deck or an onboard spa below, rather in the coming years we are looking to upgrade the air conditioning to enable our voyage crew to get a good night’s sleep, and replace the ship's engines so they're more efficient.
When our other tall ship, Lord Nelson, was given a staged overhaul from 2008 to 2010, we were amazed at the generosity of many of our loyal supporters. In fact we’re amazed daily when we open the mail in the morning; thanks are due to the many individuals, charitable trusts and companies who support JST in its work. You know who you are, and we hope you realise how grateful we are for your support.
We would like to welcome a new volunteer in the office - Robbie has recently joined us to spearhead our fundraising for this initiative. We wonder if he knows what he’s let himself in for? He’s said he’s up for a challenge...