Publishing update re the Voyage of The Aegre book; Storm sails for The Aegre; Not in the book: The story of Nelly Bly; Dinghy cruising in 1963, a little gem; and more on curraghs.
Publishing update – The Voyage of The Aegre
The book, The Voyage of The Aegre, is about to go to Gutenberg Press in Malta to be printed. We’re on course to launch the book in Lerwick, Shetland, in late July 2023, during the Tall Ships Festival. It’ll be exactly 50 years since Julie and I set sail from NW Scotland, heading south in our little Shetland boat.
Storm sails for The Aegre
Bob Macinnes, the Scourie boatbuilder, inspects our new flax storm sails. March 1973. The story behind them is in the book.
Not in the book: the story of Nelly Bly
Julie and I bought The Aegre from Andy Bryce in NW Scotland in 1972. He’d had her built in 1966, based on his experience with another Shetland boat, Nelly Bly. I’ve added the story of Nelly Bly, as told me by Andy Bryce, to the website as an introduction to the ‘About The Aegre‘ page.
Small boat cruising books
On a recent Dinghy Cruising Facebook page, readers were asked to nominate their favourite small boat cruising book. This got me thinking because I’ve got a few that are gems. Books like Lone Voyager – The story of Howard Blackburn who sailed across the Atlantic alone, twice, in the late 1890s; The Wind Calls the Tune – the story of the 20ft Nova Espero sailed by Stanley Smith and Charles Violet across the North Atlantic from Nova Scotia to England in 1949; and the 1938 Pocket Cruisers by Francis B. Cooke which I found for $4.00 in a small New Zealand 2nd hand bookshop. And lots more. To share them, I’ve started another heading under Artifacts on the website. The first little gem I’m looking at is Dinghy Cruising, by Ian Nicolson, published back in 1963. See Lesser known inspiring reads.
More about curraghs
Following the curragh story in the last post, an old friend wrote to me about his 94-year-old neighbour in NZ who had written about curraghs in the very first edition of ‘Afloat’ magazine in 1994. I’ve added his notes to the bottom of the curragh story on The Aegre website.
