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.
My last cruise in ‘Cherub II’
Albert Strange had a gift for what might be styled ‘companionable writing;’ the ability to take the reader with him, in imagination, on his voyaging reminiscences. One of these experiences is related here, a cruise in the Cherub II, “My most beloved boat” as Strange...
A quiet sense of achievement
Spring 2009: Constance is just back from her first Old Gaffers event, the annual East Coast Race weekend at Brightlingsea, where she mixed it with craft large and small, and attracted much admiration for both her looks and speed, praise which rightly belongs to her...
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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My last cruise in ‘Cherub II’
Albert Strange had a gift for what might be styled ‘companionable writing;’ the ability to take the reader with him, in imagination, on his voyaging reminiscences. One of these experiences is related here, a cruise in the Cherub II, “My most beloved boat” as Strange...
No better test of character
Most people reading this have enjoyed lives markedly more comfortable than those of their parents or grandparents. My own father served at sea when a teenager during World War II, as a stoker and coal trimmer on tramp steamers and later on deep-sea rescue tugs, on...