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| Ben Lumby on board Bluebottle. |
With only 14 days to go until the opening of the London Olympic Games, the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth Cornwall is playing its own part in the event.
Restored, re-painted and brought out from retirement, Bluebottle, a royal yacht and herself a winner at the 1956 Olympic Games, has taken pride of place outside the museum awash with banners wishing good luck to Team GBR.
Ben Lumby, muesum exhibitions manager said: “Following the hugely successful ‘Sail for Gold’ exhibition, which is now at Weymouth ready for the 2012 games, we just had to continue celebrating this very exciting Olympic year. We have Ben Ainslie’s Laser from the Sydney games on display inside the Museum and various other Olympic medal winning boats and artefacts including an Olympic torch from the 1948 London games, but we wanted to put something outside the Museum to wish all our Olympic sailors good luck.“
Bluebottle, a wedding gift to Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, won Bronze in the 1956 games in Melbourne.
The Dragon class yacht was crafted over 60 years ago in wood and couldn’t be more different to the materials and designs of racing boats today.
She has been restored and painted with the support of our volunteers and apprentices from Pendennis Shipyard.
Bluebottle will be on display outside the Maritime Museum in Falmouth throughout the duration of the Olympics and Paralympics.
As someone who remembers sailing this boat in the early 1950s I recently came into contact with her again at NMMC and must say she is a sad old lady now. Still having been used for decades by young sailors I suppose any lady would look a bit the worse for wear!