H. M. S. Nancy - The Nancy Project

H.M. Schooner Nancy Project
To Build a Replica of HM Schooner NANCY - Bi-Centennial 2012-2015

I think as Blogs go I should dedicate this one to Helen Ready, she used “Hear me Roar” so based on that and the long suffering Nancy Project, we shall say “ Hear Me Shout”

It has long been my experience as a Senior Bank Manager, some 35 years, in managing business proposals through various levels of business plans and the ubiquitous five year cash flow projections, was the importance of maintaining a sharpe focus on what one really wanted to accomplish. Did I, or did they succeed with every business proposal or decision I/we ever made over the years? Hardly! Nobody does, nor should anyone expect to!

It is important, however to recognize that in not succeeding at a goal, or not making the right decision, or even succeeding with a false schedule or time-line, doesn’t necessarily qualify as a failure. Remarkably few people recognize this fact. Why we might ask? Because most of those same people are too frightened or too timid in their lives of imminent or long term failure or to even aim for future success. Most of these people even fear to look up from the sidewalk or from the daily beat of their lives to look over the next hill or around the next corner.
Its not so much the time travelled or the road travelled or the distance traveled, as it is the importance of the journey itself along the way and the multitude of side trips know euphemistically as “tangents”. One must take a patient and careful aim along the sight line of one’s proposal before you consider giving it whatever it may be, your best shot. Probably the reason why the great American Samuel Colt invented the “six shooter”. Hell, even the olde shotgun has two barrels. So fire away.

So there we were in November of 2009 sitting in the second floor offices just before noon at the invitation of the developer who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent; could be either one of us; not really sure at this point in the game; to discuss the building of the “long in the tooth” project, the Nancy for the Bi-Centennial of 1812 in 2012 and beyond. There we were bright eyed and bushy tailed so to speak as the potential sponsor and President of the company gently rubbed his fingers over the embossed figure head for the Nancy on the letterhead and listened serenely to the project and what it could do for tourism for his investment on Georgian Bay and the ability to attract visitors to his moribund project and from that elicit some real estate buyers. After all it is a $1.9 billion dollar project. Keep that in mind.

“Done” says he; “Just get me the plans for the Nancy from the naval architect along with a shipyard and we’ll build her and of course a Business Plan for our investors. And bye the bye we’ll make you the Project Manager”.
“OK” says I. “It’s a deal, but getting an architect to do the plans for the yard may take the better part of a year”.
“Fine” says he. “Just let me know when you are ready and keep in touch with my VP here ... Mr. So and So”
We all agree and off we go. As in every story .. not quite… even though it is down in black and white with the VP … Mr. So-and-So.

So we kept in touch and arranged for what had been requested of us and even arranged to get the endorsement of the local communities along the way as the architect nears the end of the getting the plans ready for the yard. Naval drawings are not cheap as they say, about 5% of the building cost of $2.9 million. You work it out. Time is now approaching one year and we arrange for a conference call with, you guessed it, a new So-and-So who had just replaced the old So-and-So and couple of months before.

“No so fast” Says the new So-and-So. “We’ve hit a snag in our $1.9 billion development and must put you off for at least another year, maybe, in order to finance the Nancy Project”
“What the hey” Say I. “Another year after 34 years in reality won’t make that big a difference and we wish you well, especially in your negotiation with the Feds”

Shortly after November 2009 in December of 2009 we approached the local MP in the area of the “connected development” to whom we handed a copy of the Business Plan and submitted our request for a heritage ship building grant for the “project”. Then we appraoched our own MP and the MP in the area of the shipyard which would build the Nancy for their blessing which we received verbally, of course. Our MP said an answer would be forth coming in about 6 months. In three months we had heard nothing from the Ministry of Heritage Canada and re-submitted the Business Plan all over again this time directly on a CD. In a year, not much to our surprise, we still had heard nothing from the Federal Minister of Heritage. In January of 2010 he did respond to us saying that our application for the little grant had to come in via the Central Ontario Bi-Centennial Committee. Technically we had been declined and the local committee was now assigned the dirty work of saying no. And why could the Minister or the three MP’s for that matter not told us earlier.

It didn’t help that the conference call with the developer had happened just one week earlier, when the decision from the Bi-Centennial Committee came rolling in. And as we had predicted, along with a few other items, such as paragraph one which said that the Nancy Project would be “disruptive to their local committee’s plans”. Their plans included having twelve moribund museums with little or no following let alone any connection to the war of 1812 [there were three other venues that did] coming up with plans to attract funding for their “temporary venues” from the Federal government. But on it went for four more reasons, with the fifth reason of course being that they had just been made aware that the developer had had a change in plans for the foreseeable future.

So there we have it. Dead but not quite. It’s almost atypical of the Nancy Saga itself. Like many others, we're marathon runners, we're not sprinters. Mind you though the developer who as I shall remain nameless could always, say bring an old CP steamer back at the cost of nearly $35 million once its re-floated or how about an olde decommissioned Canadian submarine just like they did in Longueille Quebec at close to $65 million paid in large part by Quebec Hydro and the Quebec Municipal Employees Union. The Nancy Project is only $2.9 million, hell lets round it off to $3 million and even at twice the price makes more sense. It could sail around the lakes and even attract a sizeable return on investment. With guaranteed advertising from the Federal and provincial government the project could very easily pay for itself. But that is the private sector talking!
Hoist the Main Sails for HMS Nancy and bring on the chutzpah and we’ll add a large dose of moxie. for good measure. How Shakespearean in Measure for Measure. And instead of using Letters of Credit to support investments dollars from Singapore as one wit suggested, we could use Letters of Credit to support investment dollars from Europe to utilize, not the old US denominated dollars from Asia but, the same bucks the US treasury doesn’t recognize sitting in Europe after the end of WW2. I say lets make dollars and sense.

Oh, almost forgot my dear friend Helen, “hear me shout” girl!

* * * * *