New and Neglected Nautical Writing
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…
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…
An invitation I just couldn’t resist
Charlie Stock was a singular sailor, who was for sixty years a part of the scenery on his home waters of the Thames Estuary. In his last book, published posthumously, he describes and handles the local features and hazards meeting the small boat sailor, not only in…
Cruising in Denmark
George Holmes’s illustrated and often hand-written cruise accounts frequently appeared in the pages of the Humber Yawl Club Yearbook, and later in The Yachting Monthly. Here is a cruise he made in Denmark in 1894, and written up a few years later. He and his companion…
Progress on Emerald
One of the reasons these blog posts are so infrequent is I have a few distractions, two of which are Albert Strange yachts. One, Leona (1906) awaits attention when I finally retire from the day-job (or make me an offer). The other, Emerald (built 1937 to a…
Strange’s MIST shortlisted for Classic Boat’s Restoration of the Year
Readers will know we have a soft spot for the designs of Albert Strange and those who work to preserve them. One such was Woodbridge-based boatbuilder John Krejsa, who in 2006 took on the virtual wreck of Mist (built 1907) and performed a magnificent…
Tilman and ‘Viola’—lost footage unearthed
The BFI has recently unearthed and put online ‘lost’ colour film footage of a number of Tilman expeditions. It currently lacks any form of commentary and needs a bit of an edit. There are links to it on Bob Comlay’s website. Two reels feature a 1971…
A bit ‘Father Ted’
I became the new keeper of the Albert Strange canoe yawl Emerald in October 2017. Although she was functionally in very good order, her external brightwork (varnish) had suffered lately, as her owner of the previous twenty-five years had been unable,…
A Strange weekend on the Deben
The weekend of 1–2 September 2018 saw the largest ever gathering afloat of yachts designed by Albert Strange; this took place in idyllic conditions on the River Deben in Suffolk, with seven boats taking part. Woodbridge photographer Gill Moon gave chase on…
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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…
Like a box of jewels
Someone, somewhere wrote that George Millar was incapable of writing a dull sentence, and never was that more true than in his three books of sailing memoirs. Oyster River, set in the Morbihan in Brittany, and Isabel and the Sea, relating a voyage through the French…
The Yorkshire Coble
Perhaps the most curious craft which is found in use by the fishermen round the coasts of Britain is the Yorkshire coble [writes George Holmes in 1912]. Along with the Sheringham boat—referred to and described in a former number—this type is used for crabbing by the…