‘The Griffiths’ magic has been reflected in his writing, so that it has touched the lives of innumerable people. It would be hard to guess just how many of them owe the kindling of their first enthusiasm to some chance passage in The Magic of the Swatchways’. J D Sleightholme In the words of John […]
Gipsy Moth Circles the World by Francis Chichester
When 65-year-old Francis Chichester set sail on his solitary,eastward journey around the world in 1966, many believed he wouldn’t return alive. But when the old man returned in his 53-foot ketch Gypsy Moth IV nine months later, he had made history’s fastest circumnavigation. Gipsy Moth Circles the World was an international best-seller when it appeared […]
Old Sea Wings, Ways & Words in the days of Oak & Hemp by Robert C Leslie
Preface – It was in December, 1884, that I received the following kind words of encouragement from Mr. Ruskin, about some sketches and notes upon old ships, boats, sails, and rigging: “My Dear Leslie, I never saw anything half so delightful or useful as these compared sails so easily explained. Do set yourself at […]
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship’s surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and […]
Post Captain
This tale begins with Jack Aubrey arriving home from his exploits in the Mediterranean to find England at peace following the Treaty of Amiens. He and his friend Stephen Maturin, surgeon and secret agent, begin to live the lives of country gentlemen, hunting, entertaining and enjoying more amorous adventures. Their comfortable existence, however, is cut […]
