Luke Powell’s Working Sail is back!
The success of Christian Topf’s epic production From the Loft Floor to the Sea 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.
In all weathers by a crew of two
Tom Cunliffe writes:For fifty glorious years from the time of the 1861 Pilotage Act until the Great War nailed down the coffin lid on commercial sail, the Bristol Channel was a free-for-all for competitive piloting. This great funnel of tide-swept water stood wide...
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...
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...
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A storm at sea
The night, moonless and densely clouded, had settled around us with pitchy darkness. One could not see a hand held before the eyes. Rain came down in torrents. Repeatedly it drowned the riding light, until I abandoned the attempt of relighting it. Only the binnacle...
Words written on water
Our first book had sold out a few years before, and we had the feeling it was time for a new edition in our now-standard robust softcover format, and that there remained an unplumbed audience among people who, though perhaps not habitual readers of sailing books,...