Lodestar reg­u­lars will know that we have a soft spot for the Victorian/Edwardian ‘Renaissance Man’ Albert Strange — Yacht Designer, Sailor, Writer, Raconteur and not least Marine Artist. The Albert Strange Association, foun­ded in 1978, exists to pre­serve his…

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…

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…

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…

Knees are an imme­di­ate indic­a­tion of the boatbuilder’s abil­ity to make good look­ing shapes. Ideally one would like to use an oak crook. However, in these hon­est times, crooks are pretty hard to come by and also must be well seasoned before use, par­tic­u­larly if…

Despite its unpre­pos­sess­ing name Hole Haven, the creek to the west side of Canvey Island on the lower Thames, is a wel­come bolt-hole for those bound up- or down­river need­ing to get some rest or wait out a tide. It has ful­filled this ser­vice since at least the 1890s…