Purchase agreement reached!

Because fundraising in Svendborg has been very flat for the last several months, the Association has made an offer to the shipyard to buy the ship for the funds now available to them, and to use part of the funds to haul and survey the ship as soon as possible. They feel that fundraising will be easier if they own the ship...

The balance in the purchase account is 411.000 kr., which includes 5,000 kr from the matching grant, which the NZ donation triggered.The shipyard will receive 300,000 kr of this when the agreement is signed on monday. The shipyard will then own a part in the ship worth 400,000 kr. The Association will have three years to pay the remaining 400,000 kr owed to the shipyard. The price of the ship has risen by 100,000kr because the shipyard sent a bill for berth dues and maintenance, since the process has taken a year now.

100,000 kr of the new price will be paid by the same fund, which gave 100,000 kr last year to the Association. This money is earmarked to pay the berth dues and maintenance bill, which the Association did not feel it could ask its members to pay. Thus the Association will be responsible only for the 600,000 kr their bylaws are based on. Since the original agreement was that I should be able to walk away without debt in return for turning over the ship for the price of the debt alone, the fund felt that it's support was needed to keep that part of the agreement. The Association's board has agreed to this.

On Monday, if all goes well 'Fri' will be owned by the Sailingship Association Anne Margrethe. They will call the Association's Annual General Meeting to order on March 28th, and will ask the members to recognise the agreement. There is some talk that there may be some members not willing to be part of having a debt to the shipyard. The agreement with membership payments was that the money would remain in the escrow account until the purchase sum was reached, when it would be turned over to the shipyard, in return for ownership.

I don't know how the Association will handle this debt problem formally. I have done all that I can to try to raise the agreed 600,000 kr. so that the Association can begin with a clean slate.

I have in the meantime appealed to Greenpeace to help. A donation of 150,000 kr. or memberships in that amount will release the remainder of the 50,000 kr. promised by an anonymous donor. I feel strongly that even if it may be a one off donation, a kind of recognition by Greenpeace about the role Fri played will help in preserving that part of her long history. It may also point the way for possible future roles as an environmental educational vessel. The Association's bylaws permit other groups and organisations recognised by the board to use the ship.

I would also like feedback from all interested in seeing that some parts of the historical "modern" interior of the ship, which were central to the projects Fri sailed in the years from 1971 to 1998, be preserved. For example, and most importantly, the galley and mess. There we can point to the glass jar rack and tell the story of the hiding of the passports at Moruroa, which made the whole incredible story of our hunger strike and the popular appeal in Tahiti possible.