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EastCoastSail said..
Makes me want to buy a Folkboat
Very wet and cramped boat but oh so well balanced and not as slow as you would think for a full keel. For example faster than a Tophat but more room in a Tophat and would have to be drier on a Tophat. Both full keel. Certainly nowhere near standing Headroom in the Folkboat although the Mariholme 26 modification had a bit more.
She didn't really circumnavigate as is often publicised because the boat was put on a freighter for a month from Africa to England but I guess she came close if you don't take a technical view. Ironically after all that celestial navigation she ran aground and the yacht was wrecked on a rock just off BarrenJoey being the entrance to her native Pittwater. Same rock that punched the keel up through the bottom of a mates 1104 whilst racing and cutting it a bit fine in a big swell at high tide. Apparently she bought a second timber Folkboat which she still owned moored on Pittwater when she died about 30 years later.
Not very impressed with her expressed motivation for going. Definitely sounds like a veiled suicide attempt/political statement. Impressed however that she built the boat although again it would be interesting to know exactly how much of it she built.
Think it would have been a lot more comfy in Bill Hatfield's Triton 24 which he used in 1972 with his girlfriend and newborn for half the trip. Mind you he lost his rudder near the Falklands so maybe a full keel boat was a better idea in those days.
My experience was with my father's fiberglass folk boat in the late 70s but I gather they are quite similar. Always thought the timber clinker design meant they were constructed from solid planks but apparently it was ply which doesn't make a lot of sense to me due to exposed ends. Perhaps only the deck was ply or perhaps I am missing something.