” Most of what is written about boats is naturally based on the orthodox view, & the man who wants a boat neither for class racing nor as a harbour ornament, but to go to sea in, gets little guidance from it. This book of mine is frankly unorthodox, in that I hold nothing sacred & take nothing for granted.” So writes the (inter alia) intellectual, gun-runner, naval officer & circumnavigator Conor O` Brien, of his strongly opinionated yet vitally informative & practical book, published in 1941 & now re-published to meet ascendant interest in the sail-&-oar cruiser
- particularly the small lugger. Bristling with ideas born mostly of hard-won experience, sometimes of pure conjecture, & studded with revelatory nuggets of sheer common sense concerning small boat construction, setup & handling, Sea-Boats, Oars & Sails merits its place on the bookshelf of every sail-&-oar practitioner or aspirant. This new edition is enhanced with inspiring new photographs, & design drawings, of the small lugger design ILUR by Francois Vivier
- a design which embodies perfectly, in modern timber construction & materials, the qualities of sea-keeping, usability & safety advanced by Conor O` Brien in this book. The many full-page & double-page photos are of An Suire (The Sea-Nymph) built by Tim Cooke, & sailed by him in the waters of south-west Ireland which Conor O` Brien knew well. ” The endearing thing about Conor O` Brien (a man, come to think of it, who might not have been pleased to be called endearing) is that he is just as much a victim of his sea dreams as anyone who is likely to shell out for this book.”
- Sam Llewellyn in his Introduction


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Explore life under the Sea! Lift the giant flaps to reveal what`s underneath & touch lots of interesting textures! Feel the whale`s shiny skin, the seal`s soft fur & the shiny undersea treasure. Bright & friendly illustrations from Allison Black bring the underwater scenes to life & with something to spot or count on every page too, this colourful book in the My First Touch & Find series will provide lots of fun for older babies & toddlers. ...

This book is a visual celebration of seabirds from the tropics to the polar regions, revealing their extraordinary lives in pictures & words. From seabird cities to a lone albatross circumnavigating the globe, each picture not only tells a story but is beautifully crafted. David Tipling has travelled the world`s oceans & visited remote islands across the globe in order to reveal the secret lives of some of earth`s most enigmatic species of birds. Seabirds of the World celebrates the lives of these remarkable birds, many of which have populations in crisis. Never before has such a large group of birds needed such urgent action to save them from the brink of extinction. ...

This log is designed to be used by any mariner, commercial or leisure, who would like to keep a record of time & sea service in a form acceptable for certificate of competency purposes. It is of special application in the service-area between SOLAS merchant ships & pure leisure yachts, which is becoming a trade in its own right aboard such vessels as superyachts & charter boats. ...

While the extraordinary exploits of the seafarers who mapped the world have been well documented, those of their indispensable pest controllers, shipmates, & mascots haven`t
- until now. Drawing on journals, newspaper reports, photographs, & more, Seafurrers provides us with a cat`s-eye view of maritime history. Forty tales recount the adventures of these valiant felines & point out nuggets of trivia along the way, including: The math behind the damage rats could do on ships How flying fish (and even squid) ”fly” Why cats don`t get scurvy. This deft genealogy of cat-human friendship is sure to leave readers with a new appreciation of the cats who helped us at sea (and those we helplessly serve at home).
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Having given up a high-powered job & the lifestyle to match, Tessa Hainsworth had no idea how hard she would struggle when, full of optimism, she fulfilled her dream of moving to rural Cornwall with her young family one September. In the first book ” Up With the Larks Tessa” charted her first turbulent year with the ” Royal Mail”, & her transformation from outsider to ` Posh Postie`, adopted Cornishwoman & much-loved member of her new community. In ” Seagulls in the Attic” Tessa is now a pillar of the community, or so she thinks. Life is becoming hard for her & her family as they realise that being part of a small community is not quite the idyll she had been lead to believe, as lack of money & the demands of family life take their toll. But, as with the first book, Tessa finds the fun & resilience to turn all the hardships to her advantage
- eventually. It is rapidly becoming a must-read book for all those who hanker for an escape to the country.
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Seaham Harbour in 1895 in a fascinating series of reproductions of old Ordnance Survey plans in the Alan Godfrey Editions, ideal for anyone interested in the history of their neighbourhood or family. The map is double-sided. The main map

Includes:: St John`s church, part of town centre, Londonderry Railway with Seaham Colliery & Seaham stations, Londonderry Engine Works, Wagon Works, Dene House, part of South Hetton Railway, Rainton & Seaham Railway including Seaham Bank incline, Dawdon Hall, Dawdon Dene, most of New Seaham, Seaham Colliery, Miners Hall, Colliery Inn, Brick Works, etc. Sheet 21.04 on the reverse shows the harbour including North Dock, South Dock & Dry Harbour; Blastfurnace Branch railway, Ballast Branch, Seaham Bottle Works, Chemical Works (disused), Terrace Green, Bath Terrace (near top of map), Swine Lodge Bank & railways around docks, Bottle Makers Arms, etc. About the Alan Godfrey Editions of the 25” OS Series: Selected towns in Great Britain & Ireland are covered by maps showing the extent of urban development in the last decades of the 19th & early 20th century. The plans have been taken from the Ordnance Survey mapping & reprinted at about 15 inches to one mile (1:4, 340). On the reverse most maps have historical notes & many also include extracts from contemporary directories. Most maps cover about one mile (1.6kms) north/south, one & a half miles (2.4kms) across; adjoining sheets can be combined to provide wider coverage.FOR MORE INFORMATION & A COMPLETE LIST OF ALL AVAILABLE TITLES PLEASE CLICK ON THE SERIES LINK.

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A lively & authoritative investigation into the lives of our ancestors, based on the revolution in the field of Bronze Age archaeology which has been taking place in Norfolk & the Fenlands over the last twenty years, & in which the author has played a central role. One of the most haunting & enigmatic archaeological discoveries of recent times was the uncovering in 1998 at low tide of the so-called Seahenge off the north coast of Norfolk. This circle of wooden planks set vertically in the s&, with a large inverted tree-trunk in the middle, likened to a ghostly `hand reaching up from the underworld`, has now been dated back to around 2020 BC. The timbers are currently (and controversially) in the author`s safekeeping at Flag Fen. Francis Pryor & his wife (an expert in ancient wood-working & analysis) have been at the centre of Bronze Age fieldwork for nearly 30 years, piecing together the way of life of Bronze Age people, their settlement of the landscape, their religion & rituals. The famous wetland sites of the East Anglian Fens have preserved ten times the information of their dryland counterparts like Stonehenge & Avebury, in the form of pollen, leaves, wood, hair, skin & fibre found `pickled` in mud & peat. Seahenge demonstrates how much Western civilisation owes to the prehistoric societies that existed in Europe in the last four millennia BC. ...

What happens when magic collides with reality? Donald is a young fisherman, eking out a lonely living on the west coast of Scotl&. One night he witnesses something miraculous.. .and makes a terrible mistake. His action changes lives
- not only his own, but those of his family & the entire tightly knit community in which they live. Can he ever atone for the wrong he has done, & can love grow when its foundation is violence? Based on the legend of the selkies
- seals who can transform into people
- Sealskin is a magical story, evoking the harsh beauty of the landscape, the resilience of its people, both human & animal, & the triumph of hope over fear & prejudice. With exquisite grace, Exeter Novel Prize-winner Su Bristow transports us to a different world, subtly & beautifully exploring what it means to be an outsider, & our innate capacity for forgiveness & acceptance. Rich with myth & magic, Sealskin is, nonetheless, a very human story, as relevant to our world as to the timeless place in which it is set. & it is, quite simply, unforgettable.


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Describes the proper historical development of seamanship among the major navies of the world. In order to explain even the most complex evolution clearly, over 350 line drawings were specially commissioned. Every aspect of handling a man-of-war is detailed & illustrated from original sources. ...