Working Sail – Page 3 – Sailing By: Tales from our coasts and inland waterways

Ferocious storms and fearless lifeboat crews: 1880

The Coxswain and crew of the RNLI lifeboat ‘Lady Leigh’, ably assisted by the ‘rocket apparatus’ of the Coastguards, spent[…]

Daniel Defoe describes a terrible disaster when 200 sailing colliers were lost off the east coast of England in 1692.[…]

Enkhuizen has been a major harbour since the middle ages, and its links with herring fishing are still recognised today[…]

‘Cine Mara’ is a replica Galway hooker, built in steel by Rik, a Dutch member of the OGA. She is[…]

Until the 16th century, Douarnenez was a busy commercial centre exporting local cloth, but its greatest period of prosperity was[…]

This extract tells the story of James Herbert, son of an agricultural labourer, who followed many local young men in[…]

In 1854 a group of Cornish fishermen left for Australia, to seek their fortune, sailing their 37′ open Mounts Bay[…]

In these two short snippets from the Pathé film archive, we see nine Newlyn fishermen petition the Minister of Health[…]

In this extract from ‘Poor Jack’ by Frederick Marryatt, a Royal Navy midshipman turned full-time writer, we read how young[…]

Watch footage of the working boats racing off the coast of Brixham at a regatta in 1936. The archive footage[…]