The 'Duster' is smiling again and looking good as restoration and upgrading work continues in Norway.
Posting what he describes as a "happy update" on Facebook about the restoration of the legendary Moonduster "from the Duster team here in Norway," Derek Holden says there is a lot of work left, but "our internal drive-on will be hard to stop."
"Teamwork makes the dreamwork," he writes in an update from Trondheim – "also from John Kavanagh and thanks Jonas Olafsen," with a photograph of the new stern "built by the Duster team in Norway. The name will be placed again next week."
She has languished, unused, neglected, and deteriorating in a dock in Trondheim, but she is now being restored, and, as Derek Holden reports… "Duster is smiling again."
The stern as it was a few weeks ago (above) - when John Kavanagh and I arrived to rescue Duster, says Derek Holden and below the refurbished stern
Moonduster, the renowned yacht of the late Denis Doyle, built in Crosshaven, had stamped her presence nationally in the Round Ireland Race and sailed out of the Royal Cork YC. She was built in Crosshaven Boatyard.
Old Glory. Moonduster in her prime in Denis Doyle's ownership and command from 1981 to 2001
"In the Spring of 1981, Denis Doyle's Frers 51 was launched at Crosshaven into a glittering 20-year partnership in which she and her very special owner-skipper became a much-admired feature of the European offshore racing scene," wrote WM Nixon in Afloat. "It was a wonderful double act that ended with his death in 2001, shortly after completing his final Fastnet Race aged 81 aboard his beloved boat."
After Denis Doyle's death, Moonduster was sold to Norway, apparently for an offshore sailing and adventure project which never materialised.
