Dr Thomas Harrison Butler was a skilled, yet amateur, designer responsible for some hundreds of classic English cruising yachts which still grace our seas. Cruising Yachts, his design manifesto, first appeared in 1945—the year of his death—and last appeared in print in 1995. This long overdue Fifth Edition has been produced in collaboration with the Harrison Butler Association, and is a complete re-setting of the original text, drawings and mono photographs, documenting in detail HB’s approach to the design and equipping of a yacht, providing an annotated catalogue of notable designs, and including a biographical portrait by HB’s daughter, the late Joan Jardine-Brown. New for this edition are a modern gallery of colour photographs of HB yachts, and a thoughtful and illuminating Foreword by the late Ed Burnett, who was our foremost designer of modern yachts in the classic English idiom.

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Pages: 184

Publication Date: 04-09-2015

Inexplicably out of print since the late 1940s, Messing About in Boats is one of the most charming and evocative accounts of work and leisure afloat in the years either side of the Great War. John Muir describes with humanity and humour the perils of boat acquisition and ownership by the impecunious, and the somewhat mixed talents of the Paid Hand. But his account is more than balanced by the interest and pleasure he took in working and sailing in English waters, from the North Sea to the Bristol Channel, in an age long before the marina, GPS and radio. Muir provides two valuable first-hand accounts of work afloat under steam and sail before the War, while he was on half-paid leave between assignments in the Royal Navy: In the North Sea ‘boxing’ fleet of trawlers which remained on station for weeks on end, where he served in his medical capacity, and later in the Bristol Channel Pilot service, where he crewed on a cutter, delivering the pilot to incoming ships in all weathers. His unfavourable views of the qualities of the Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter as a yacht may surprise its aficionados today, but he relented sufficiently to own two of them, Maud and Freda, which feature in the book.

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Pages: 208

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 20-10-2016

GEORGE HOLMES lived from 1861 to 1940 on the northern side of the Humber estuary. He was an avid and accomplished sailor in small craft of his own design, in British waters and in mainland Europe, and his prolific writing and drawing have left us an absorbing and charming record of his cruises, his boats, and the people and places he encountered. In common with his friend and sailing companion Albert Strange, boats were not his regular occupation but were a diversion from his working life. And along with Strange, his name is forever associated with the development of the Canoe Yawl, now enjoying a renewed popularity. Its sailing qualities make it arguably the best choice of craft for the single- or short-handed coastal and estuary sailor. Holmes of the Humber is a nautical book and a social document. Look within to appreciate the pioneering days of cruising under sail, when enjoyment and fulfilment sprang from personal endeavour and the camaraderie of the group, and were largely independent of the external forces which would control us today. Tony Watts has combined original sources, Holmes’ published output and the recollections of his family, and his own knowledge and experience of the Humber sailing scene to produce this, The Essential George Holmes.

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Pages: 272

Dimensions: 210 x 275 mm

Publication Date: 17-11-2016

‘There’s more than a touch of irony about the title of Arthur Ransome’s We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea. The book came about precisely because that’s just what he had intended to do,’ Generations of children and their parents have delighted in Arthur Ransome’s series of twelve ‘Swallows and Amazons’ books, but one of them stands out from the rest as being of a different order altogether. We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea is both larger of theme and tighter of plot; it is a rite-of-passage tale quite unlike the others, and in describing the experiences of its protagonist John it illuminates much of Ransome’s own psychology. Good Little Ship is a blend of literary criticism, maritime history and sheer celebration. Peter Willis combines an analysis of a classic of maritime literature (“a book of which Conrad would have been proud” – Hugh Brogan) with the story of the Nancy Blackett, Ransome’s own boat which appears as the Goblin in his story. He describes her life, near-death and restoration, and her renaissance as an ambassador for Ransome and his tales.

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Pages: 226

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 16-11-2017

First published to huge acclaim during the war it describes, Very Ordinary Seaman relates—with humanity, humour and the authority of experience—lower-deck life in the British navy, from basic training to service on a destroyer protecting a convoy to Arctic Russia, a mission which came under heavy attack by air and sea, and from which many did not return. When Very Ordinary Seaman first appeared in the spring of 1944, V. S. Pritchett of the New Statesman described it as ‘One of the best pieces of documentary writing that I have come across during the war.’ Elizabeth Bowen wrote in The Tatler, ‘the last chapters of Very Ordinary Seaman did leave me breathless; and also, feeling that we have known too little.’ John Betjeman wrote, ‘This is so sincere and truthful, so much both, that you are held all the time… You become part of the community life of the ship, so that despite the dangers, boredom and discomfort you step ashore reluctantly.’ By any standards this was a remarkable performance for a writer who was wearing the uniform of an ordinary seaman and sitting in a busy, overcrowded naval office ‘facing a blank wall and typing myself dry.’ — from Brian Lavery’s Introduction

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Pages: 330

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 08-10-2018

“I wonder if you can help me.” “Maybe I could, or maybe I couldn’t,” was the very Welsh reply. “What is it you are wanting?” “Would you happen to know of any boats for sale?” It was a question the young man had asked many times before, and always with the same result. Nothing suited. There was no shortage of boats, but every time there was a problem, either they were too big or too small or as one honest broker—and yes there is such a thing—remarked, “Don’t buy her. She will kill you.” It had been a long depressing catalogue of scrabbling about fusty old tore-outs (rotten timber gleaming with suspiciously fresh paint), ugly ducklings, and unspeakable lifeboat conversions. So there was no reason to suppose that this time would be any different. “What kind of boat is it you are looking for?” with barely concealed cupidity; for an outsider with money to burn in the wilds of the Isle of Anglesey was akin to manna from Heaven. “Something like that,” said the innocent, pointing out a dainty white cutter on her mooring in Holyhead harbour. “Well,” said he “I believe she may just be for sale.” He may well have added—but this might just be imagining—“You had better be quick, she is not on the market yet.” An Irish horse dealer could not have done it better. So began, in 1973, Martin O'Scannall's love affair with Sauntress, voted in 2013 one of Classic Boat magazine's Top 250 Boats. Here, in a series of delightful, engaging episodes ranging from Anglesey to Galicia by way of the West Country, the East Coast, the Netherlands, Norway and south-west Ireland, is what it is like to restore and sail—and be possessed by—a modest yet glorious 28ft gaffer dating from the golden age of Edwardian yachting. For the Love of Sauntress is illustrated with a gallery of outrageously beautiful photographs by Oscar Companioni, printed in monochrome and colour; these depict Sauntress in all her present-day glory, and were taken on a single, perfect August evening off the Galician coast during her annual match race with her local rival Abur.

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Pages: 144

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 11-11-2014

Martin O’Scannall loves the old, the eccentric, the offbeat — the quirky if you like; the wandering off into byways, the exploration of half-forgotten snippets of history. And Galicia, his home for the past decade or more, is ideal territory for indulging that taste. Galicia is a time warp: rain-swept, isolated, savage and gentle by turns, as far a cry from the blazing Costas as it is possible to imagine. This book is a conversation with the past, conducted in a very old, engineless gaff cutter, armed with the Admiralty Pilot, a gallant crew, and a sense of the ridiculous. We encounter, but in unexpected ways, the likes of Drake, Nelson, the ill-fated HMS Serpent, Celtic myth and legend, and the reminiscences of those who have gone before, all interspersed with the business of managing an old yacht in the old way: Walker log, paper charts and all. Beginning, as he says it has to be, with the dreaded storm at sea.

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Pages: 140

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 05-07-2019

I first met her in Tollesbury and immediately fell for her. She was an Essex girl through and through but not like all the others, although she was shallow. As far as I could see then there were only two problems. There was a big age difference—fifty-five years. She was born in 1904 and I was ten back then in 1959. None of this mattered to me but the second problem would be trickier: my Dad loved her too. So begins Nick Imber’s affectionate account of his family’s love affair with the barge yacht Nan, who was to give so much pleasure to three generations, across twenty years from the 1950s to the 1970s. We share Nick’s childhood excitement on first encountering Nan, his teenage pride in skippering her for the very first time, and his quiet pleasure as his own children take to the water in her. Nan took good care of them all; whether exploring a peaceful East Coast river, braving a gale at sea, or drying out on an idyllic Devon beach, she demonstrates that the humble barge yacht has so much to offer the young sailing family.

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Pages: 170

Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 28-01-2019

Many popular tractors from the late 1960s to the 1980s have become classics on Britain's farms. This handy guide to 41 classic tractors contains: * Description and photograph of each tractor * Country of manufacture * Engine and horsepower This period saw a huge rise in the power and comfort of tractors, and paved the way for today's high-tech farm machinery.

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Pages: 88

Dimensions: 178 x 127 mm

Publication Date: 09-03-2021

Urban passenger rail patronage in Auckland and Wellington is now booming after many years of decline. Outside these two centres, however, the situation is quite different: intercity and regional passenger rail services are scarce, and no other city possesses suburban rail. Not only does this hamper the mobility of regional New Zealanders, it is incongruous in light of the climate emergency declared by many local councils. Can’t Get There from Here traces the expansion and – more commonly – the contraction of New Zealand’s passenger rail network over the last century. What is the historical context of today’s imbalance between rail and road? How far and wide did the passenger rail network once run? Why is there an abject lack of services beyond the North Island’s two main cities, even as demand for passenger transport continues to grow? This book seeks to answer these questions. In this fascinating study, Andre Brett argues that the trend away from passenger rail might appear inevitable and irreversible but it was not. Things could have been - and still could be - very different. We need to understand the challenges that brought passenger rail to the brink of extinction in order to create policy for future transport that is efficient and sustainable.

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Pages: 384

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 15-11-2021