The chain

I am link number 7. And, thanks to an old article by Andrew Pool and to Anders Lindgren (link #4), here is the full sequence.

Brian Bleasdale had Mea built in 1959 in Hong Kong to the ocean cruising design, though with the standard rig, and began a leisurely cruise home to England which was to take him three years. His first year took him to Borneo, and next to Ceylon and South Africa, and during the third he reached Falmouth, England. There Mea was laid up in a mudberth, apparently unloved and forgotten, until Bleasdale’s death in 1967 some five years later. His charts and log were still on board. 

The second owner was a Swede, Adde Welander. He sailed Mea to Sweden, probably singlehanded. Then his wife died in a car accident, and he never made any more voyages in Mea. She laid, totally painted white, in a canal in Norrtälje, and slowly decayed.

The third owner, Ivar Olsen, a Norwegian living in Stockholm, bought her from Welander. Ivar played the French horn in a symphony orchestra in Stockholm. He never did any long-distance voyages but worked steadily on Mea.

Anders Lindgren bought Mea from Ivar when he was 23. Anders took Mea on an Atlantic tour in 1987-1988, then re-decked her in 1989, helped by his friend Pierre Auzias. Anders told me that when his mum manifested her preoccupation for the planned voyage to Ivar, he replied: “Don’t worry, Mea will take care of him.” 

Anders decided to sell Mea in 2000, and contacted David Morris, a UK broker. David liked Mea a lot and decided to buy her for himself. However, a couple of years later he sold her to Robert Hedges, a professor of Archaeology at the University of Oxford. In 2005 Robert had the engine replaced to her current Beta 13.5hp. I bought Mea from Robert in September 2018.