New and Neglected Nautical Writing
This was living, at its best
Around the turn of the twentieth century the Humber Yawl Club exerted a national, and international, influence in the world of cruising under sail which completely belied the parochial horizon its name suggests. George Holmes (1861–1940) was for decades the leading…
Ghost ship of Grytviken
The Albert Strange Association (bear with me), in which I am heavily implicated, held its Annual General Meeting in Lincoln a few years ago, and our very engaging guest speaker was Dr Robb Robinson, a maritime historian at the University of Hull. His subject was…
Too fast for accurate navigation
The year was 1955 and H W Tilman was undertaking his first ‘sail to climb’ expedition, aiming to cross the Patagonian ice-cap in both directions—starting from the ‘other side’. This would necessitate a transit of the Magellan Strait; as Sir Robin Knox-Johnston puts it…
Travels with Tilman
Bob Comlay sailed with H W Tilman to Greenland – twice – while still in his teens and formed an enduring friendship with ‘the Skipper’ which lasted until Tilman’s loss at sea in 1977. Bob was invaluable in pulling together the new forewords and afterwords to our…
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…
Lonely backwaters
[Sea-Country is now out of print but we thought you’d still enjoy this extract]Tony Smith is now the keeper of Charlie Stock’s game little 16-foot gaff cutter Shoal Waters, and has made it his business to take her the length and breadth of the Thames estuary, and into…
Then three come along…
We didn’t plan it this way, but events conspired to make three blockbusters (by our modest standards) turn up from the printer in one month. All are now in stock and available to order. The big one weighs in at just under two kilogrammes, and it upset our…
The running sheets are in
No, not a sailing expression; this week we received the running sheets for our largest and most visually ambitious production: From the Loft Floor to the Sea. These are a complete set of the printed pages, folded and trimmed, but not bound. At this stage…
Talking Tilman
Bob Comlay sailed with H W Tilman to Greenland – twice – while still in his teens and formed an enduring friendship with ‘the Skipper’ which lasted until Tilman’s loss at sea in 1977. Bob was invaluable in pulling together the new forewords and afterwords…
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Then three come along…
We didn’t plan it this way, but events conspired to make three blockbusters (by our modest standards) turn up from the printer in one month. All are now in stock and available to order. The big one weighs in at just under two kilogrammes, and it upset our…
The running sheets are in
No, not a sailing expression; this week we received the running sheets for our largest and most visually ambitious production: From the Loft Floor to the Sea. These are a complete set of the printed pages, folded and trimmed, but not bound. At this stage…
Talking Tilman
Bob Comlay sailed with H W Tilman to Greenland – twice – while still in his teens and formed an enduring friendship with ‘the Skipper’ which lasted until Tilman’s loss at sea in 1977. Bob was invaluable in pulling together the new forewords and afterwords…