Solitaire
HMS Solitaire is the ketch-rigged sailboat which serves as the principle research vessel of the Bacliff Exploration Society and flagship of the Bacliff Expeditionary Fleet. Approximately 60 ft from bow to stern, it is made entirely of Burmese teak and Louisiana cyprus. It was constructed by the Dutch in 1805 using the wreckage of ships from the Battle of Trafalgar. In 1836, it participated in the Battle of Matagorda Bay, the largest naval battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. It is equipped with the latest state-of-the-art squidcams and ham radio decoder rings.
Solitaire is presently tied up next to Floridays bar in Bradenton Florida whilst pre-planning takes place for her journey up the Hudson River to attempt to find a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean that still has ice in it. When sea level rise reconnects the Hudson River to the St Lawrence Seaway this will become possible.
Captains
Solitaire has had many illustrious captains throughout its storied history.
- Grissom Turduckensworth (1805-1816)
- Horatio Macshearwater (1816-1861)
- Sophocles "Sooty" Macshearwater (1861-1865)
- Lord Cletus Shinypants (May 1865 - June 1865)
- Mitchell Horatio Campbell (1865-1898)
- Horatio Mitchell "Mitch" Campbell (1898-1902)
- Thomas Cuthbert Campbell III (1902-1911)
- Thomas Mitchell Campbell (Nov 1911)
- Gulden Meriwether Draak (Dec 1911-?) [lost at sea in a stitch-and-glue dinghy]
- Knut Heyerdahl Shackleton (1912-1918)
- From approximately 1919-1952 the whereabouts of Solitaire are unknown. Legend has it, after the disgrace and imprisonment of legendary Texan ne'er-do-well Knut Shackleton, Solitaire was hidden in a storage shed in Bacliff, Texas (then a little-known village called Fish Truck By the Sea)
- Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Campbell (1952-1967)
- Thomas Meriwether Campbell IV (1968-Present)
Support Vessels
- HMS Sharktypus (principal research dinghy)
- HMS Dolphonauticrab (autonomous research submersible)
- HMS Manateelican (power generation vehicle)
- AV Squolluskito (principal research aircraft and ham radio kite antenna)
- RS (Remote Station) Kookabearnacle (neritic sounding probe)
Sister ships
Voyages of Exploration
- Heart of Dimness (November, 2007)
- Harvest Moon Regatta (October, 2011)
