New and Neglected Nautical Writing — All books Post-Free in the UK
A legacy of riches
When barely sixteen I spent two months with my slightly younger brother Dave hitch-hiking, and often rough sleeping, around Scotland watching birds. We went as far north as the Shetland isle Fetlar to see the snowy owls which bred there, and managed to cadge an…
To sea for shelter
Herbert Alker Tripp (1883–1954) was a keen sailor and an accomplished artist whose regular occupation was in a civilian capacity with the Metropolitan Police in London from 1902 until his retirement in 1947. Beginning as a clerk, he rose to the rank of Assistant…
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…
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…
CORONAVIRUS NEWS
Our distributor has reopened with a skeleton staff, so we are now able once more to service orders on the website, though deliveries will take longer than normal. Thank you for your patience!
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 (or make me an offer). The other, Emerald (built 1937 to a design of 1910),…
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,…
More stories »
Earlier news »
That unique engagement
For most of my life my sailing was of the armchair kind, and in the mid-1970s much of it was in the delightful company of Ken Duxbury, a writer whose light touch belies the skill and resourcefulness which underpinned the voyages made by him and his wife B. in their…
A legacy of riches
When barely sixteen I spent two months with my slightly younger brother Dave hitch-hiking, and often rough sleeping, around Scotland watching birds. We went as far north as the Shetland isle Fetlar to see the snowy owls which bred there, and managed to cadge an…
Handy with a toolbox
Martin O’Scannall has enjoyed a love affair of more than forty years with his 1913 gaff cutter Sauntress, beginning with her rebuild and culminating in the glories pictured here. Below is his account of her sojourn in a boatyard at Brentford on the Thames in west…
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…