Luke Powell’s Working Sail is back!
The success of Christian Topf’s epic production From the Loft Floor to the Sea 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.
Getting sea-value
My good friend Fabian Bush built me a (-nother!) boat a few years ago and we launched her together in 2014 at West Mersea in Essex. Teal is named for the 'small dabbling duck' in recognition of the direction my sailing was expected to take in my dotage, and she has...
The rough with the smooth
Bob Comlay is a veteran of two Tilman expeditions to Greenland, and has cajoled many sailors, climbers and writers into contributing forewords and afterwords to our new Collected Edition of Tilman, shedding fresh light on a frequently misunderstood figure: I...
A mindful scrutiny
Gloria Wilson has been writing about, photographing and drawing the North Sea fishing industry for half a century. Of her drawings in particular she writes:In making the drawings, with my own photographs for reference, I have enjoyed a mindful scrutiny of the boats...
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Extreme limit of the credible
A correspondent familiar with the first edition of Messing About in Boats wrote to me: a delightful book of real sailing from a man who comes over as being kind, compassionate and considerate. He bought three copies of our new edition as gifts—an example worthy of...
Getting sea-value
My good friend Fabian Bush built me a (-nother!) boat a few years ago and we launched her together in 2014 at West Mersea in Essex. Teal is named for the 'small dabbling duck' in recognition of the direction my sailing was expected to take in my dotage, and she has...