The Sea Dart of Tristan Jones' Fame

[oreana123]

I have been working on the Sea Dart. I made a custom fit cover for trailering the boat, and now I am installing a small lighting system to make the boat legal at night.Until I worked on this boat, I had never heard of Tristan Jones and the places he took this boat. It is sailed occasionally, and this picture from last weekend shows me pushing off of its trailer on the launch.One thing about working on this boat, I know that a lot of people are going to see my work, as this is now the Idaho state boat and displayed in a lot of places...

 

[jackhartjr]

Please tell me who...

...Tristan Jones is/was?Pretty boat!ThanksJack

 

[oreana123]

Tristan

Tristan Jones was a sailor who did a remarkable thing: he wrote about his adventures and published some books about sailing in the '70s, I believe. Just for starters, you can google his name for a list of books, but he sailed in the Carribean and around South America. He managed to ship this boat by railway to Lake Titicaca in Peru, and sailed it there and brought it back. Built in England, the boat has been back to England at least once. In an effort to sail in the Andies, Jones sailed up the Amazon until the current and lack of maps drove him back to the Atlantic. And that's just the things I've heard.At the time that the boat was shipped to Lake Titicaca, the railway only came within 9 miles of water, so Jones and another did the Egyptian Pyramid rock moving technique, rolling the boat on logs the last 9 miles. How did it get back?

 

[Bob V]

Inspiring guy

If all of his voyages don't impress you, consider that he did many of them after losing a leg.I've read quite a few of his books already and picked up two yesterday that I had missed. "To Venture Further" about his voyages in Thailand and "Outward Leg" which is about his first voyage after losing his leg put him ashore for seven years.

 

[SamLust]

Buy the books and find out!

His stories are very entertaining, and you must kep in mind that he was vastly more interested in entertainment value (sales value) than truth value. But a good yarn is a good yarn whether it is true or not.If you sail you should know Tristan Jones.

 

[SamLust]

It was noted by Patience Wales, publisher of SAIL

Magazine that Sea Dart was about the slowest, least seaworthy cruising boat she knew. Pink slips? on corrected time? Who's skippering?

 

[ChuckThomas]

read his book a while back.

Great story. Tristan wanted to sail the lowest navigable and the highest navigable waters of the world. He started off in one boat and sailed it to Israel and trucked it to the Dead Sea. (I think that is the railway part of the story). He then sailed it down the Red Sea, along the East side of Africa and back to Brazil. He then attempted to get to Lake Titicaca by going up the Amazon. The boat was too large and heavy. He gave up. He went back down the river and to the Caribbean where he bought Sea Dart. He sailed it through the Panama Canal and down the West coast of South America. He then loaded it on a truck and drove up to the lake through Peru and Bolivia. After that he sailed down the river (can’t remember name) through Paraguay back to Brazil. There was one point where he literally carried the boat with the help of an Indian native he met on the lake. The story is full of adventure and I highly recommend the read. Some claim there was no way to do what he claimed but... He had pictures.

 

[Timo42]

I first read of Tristan on a blacksmith site.

This may be of interest. Tim

 

[CalebD]

I have read all his writings

and I can say that they were all enjoyable, whether or not the yarns were truthful or not. The most swashbuckling one (described above) is "The Incredible Voyage" and is a good starting point for anyone interested in sailing stories.Thanks for the link Timo42, I think I found that one a while back and it does cast an interesting spin on the man who was Tristan Jones. Even if he was a bit complicated (like most of us are) he could spin a good yarn.Enjoy.

 

[Warren Milberg]

I have always been a fan

of Tristan Jones. He had a very interesting life, was a great sailor, and a very "imaginative" story teller. Please tell us more about how you came to own "Sea Dart," and please post some more pics of the interior/exterior of this unique little boat. You really are sailing some history!

 

[Lou 14643]

Dark side to Tristan Jones

I've also loved reading his books, and then recently found a biography that paints a different picture of Jones. You may want to look at a book called "Wayward Sailor - In Search of the Real Tristan Jones" by Anthony Dalton for a fascinating look at this character. While he was admittedly an accomplished sailor, much of his story, including even his identity, was a fabrication. According to the author, Jones was never in the British navy, and was not Welsh, as he maintained. Much of his purported voyaging, especially in his earlier years, may not have ever happened.

 

[Rick Webb]

Who Cares?

A good story is a good story and his are GREAT!!!

 

[oreana123]

Boat's Owner

The State of Idaho Parks and Recreation owns the Sea Dart because it was donated by one of the boat's original owners, Ron Reil, who still lives in the Boise area.I am doing a subcontracted wiring job on the boat. It was decided that the original kerosene lamps that attached to the stays are going to be hard to replace and the practicality of a small electrical system would be a better idea. I have tried to hide the wire and panel, and I've cringed when drilling the few holes I have had to, to route the wires. I made a battery box today out of HDPE plastic that fit into some wooden brackets installed long ago. When I was in the anchor locker last night, I found attached to the inside wall a speaker of extreme age. The boat has two metal fins besides the keel that are approximately 4 foot by 4 foot. They are attached to the hull to allow the boat to be grounded at high tide, and stand up nicely at low. As a result, and beacuse the rudder is the worst design I have ever seen, coming about would really be an event. It is ironic that this boat, which has such a poor rudder, is in the shop of one of the highest performance production companies: Idasailor. Tonight I'll finish mounting the aft running light, finish and connect the terminal ends of the individual wire runs, and install a steaming light on the mast and run the wires externally down it. We are discussing the location of the hole on the deck near the mast to lead back to the power panel.I have to finish this up by tomorrow, Sunday I leave for Lihue, Kauai, for 2 weeks in the sun.....John S Boise

 

[Liam]

Dark Side

Dark side...?Yes, we all have a dark side.Fabrication...?Okay, maybe a lot of what Tristan Jones wrote was hiperboly, fabrication, or out right lies. But still, he has done more than most of you will!So, were all of the things Mark Twain wrote true?Or how about the Bible... truth or fiction?My point is, Mr. Jones might have had a dark side, he might have been a liar, but he had an adventurous life that few will equal and he inspired thousands of humans.So what will you do?Compare your life with his and think.If you wrote a book about YOUR life, would anyone read it?

 

[Ross]

Lou , I had a Brother-in-law whom I loved dearly

who never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. Many of the stories that he told I had read years earlier in novels and stories about WW2. Bill would always tell them in the first person singular. But he was a good story teller and always had his historical facts straight. I am surprised that you didn't reflect on his last years in SE Asia and his life there. He was a double amputee because of circulatory disease. He never claimed to write dosumentaries he wrote novels and as such he had license to embellish.

 

[Jeff D]

A real character

I had the experience of having dinner with him years ago when he was barnstorming through the midwest with his boat. He was very entertaining. He had all kinds of notations painted on the exterior of the boat. For example, where there was a gouge on the gunnel he painted Shark bite or something like that. What I recall was the interior which was painted a sick green and really had a unique stench. Of course some of his stories wouldn;t pass a fact checker today but he was one of a kind that we should have more of in this world.

 

[Lou 14643]

You're absolutely right - credit where it is due

And I acknowledge I can tend to be a kind of black and white kind of guy, but as I read more about Jones I lost some of my admiration for him - the man. Ross, you're right about the later part of his life and I still give him credit for his incredible accomplishments, especially considering the challenges he overcame. Liam, I try not to compare my life to anyone's, but when I look at person, I look first at their character, not at their accomplishments. It is in terms of character that I was reflecting on Jones' "dark side." The author I referenced seems to clearly make the point that he had a public side and a private side, and they were greatly at odds. In the same vein, when it became public that Woody Allen was having a love affair with his step-daughter I decided I didn't need to support him anymore by paying to see his movies, as much as I think he is a great artist. This does not take away from his accomplishments, just that I think I can leave it to others to pay for tickets to his movies. I'll pass.

 

[newly anonymous]

Drat!

I was hoping you folks up in Idaho had never heard of corrected time.You should know that here in California we feel that handicapped racing is for sissies.

 

[oreana123]

PHRF

OK, just so you know where I am coming from: I grew up in San Diego. Worked on sailboats and power boats out of Shelter Island. Worked for Jack Kelly Yacht Sales and got Peterson 44s ready for delivery. It's true that sailing in Idaho is different than ocean sailing. Different problems arise in weather in relatively shallow inland bodies of water. By the way, in order to win a race against the Californian, we'd make sure that there were shoals somewhere along the course. What does that boat need for draft? John S

 

[newly anonymous]

top secret

The Californian's draft is classified, unfortunately, as is her PHRF rating, but I can tell you that she spreads 7,000 square feet of canvas. How does that compare with Sea Dart?