Luke Powell’s Working Sail is back!
The success of Christian Topf’s epic production From the Loft Floor to the Sea (now out of print – sorry!) shows that interest in traditional wooden boatbuilding, and the pilot cutter as an exemplar of it, is unabated. We’ve now reissued Luke’s 2012 account of his life in wooden boats – covering the entire bevy of his earlier pilot cutters.
You can learn more and secure a copy here.
Truly, a place apart
It’s not just about the boats, but their presence is strong in the North Yorkshire fishing village of Staithes. We had a lovely weekend in November accompanying author Gloria Wilson – who was brought up here – to local signing sessions. Local historian James Stoker gave us a grand walking tour of this hardy, self-reliant, eccentric, and now much changed settlement, for which the term ‘higgledy-piggledy’ might have been invented.
Let Gloria guide you too on a stroll around the village she loves; start here.
How it all began
George Holmes was an influential figure in the design and sailing of small boats from the late nineteenth century until well into the twentieth. His prolific writings, drawings, etchings, and designs had never been collected when, in 2009, my friend Tony Watts of the Humber Yawl Club agreed to take on this task, and incorporate a biography of Holmes. The success of Holmes of the Humber, our first book, got Lodestar Books off the ground.
Holmes is finally out of print, but you can now enjoy a copy in PDF form – click here.
A storm at sea
The night, moonless and densely clouded, had settled around us with pitchy darkness. One could not see a hand held before the eyes. Rain came down in torrents. Repeatedly it drowned the riding light, until I abandoned the attempt of relighting it. Only the binnacle...
A serious kind of joy
Somehow, and to his incredulity, I had never read an Arthur Ransome book when Peter Willis approached me with Good Little Ship. Nancy Blackett, the real-life original of the Goblin in We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, was a familiar sight on the East Coast and clearly much...
A preposterous proposal
Philip Temple's 1965 account of an outrageously bold expedition was published without fanfare, without many good photographs, and without even the benefit of a copy-editor; it vanished without trace. The Sea and The Snow came to our attention a few years ago as we...