When I was young, dad read me swallows and amazons which is a lovely book about a bunch of kids having adventures in the lake district of the UK. It’s set in the 1930s I guess but it’s pretty progressive for its time. One of the characters is Nancy Blackett who’s the pirate captain of the Amazons. The author (Authur Ransome) named his own boat the Nancy Blackett. Anyway, I’ve been reading the books to Anna, and there are a bunch of nautical terms (like halyards, mainstays, painters etc. etc.) and I was searching for a video to explain the terminology. It turned up this beautiful video ->
Now, I had no idea where Pin Mill was (where the boat is moored), but, turned out it was just a few hours away from where we were going to have our family gathering, so, we went for a sail. It was wonderful to be present on the authors boat. The boat itself features in the book we didn’t mean to go to sea. I tried reading that one to Anna, but, it was just a little bit too nautical so we skipped over it. Maybe we’ll come back to it some day.
Anyway, a fantastic day out. I can totally recommend joining the trust and going for a sail if you’re a fan of the books and in the area.
Leave a Reply