{"id":4971,"date":"2018-01-24T23:34:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T23:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/?p=4971"},"modified":"2018-01-24T23:34:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T23:34:06","slug":"good-little-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/?p=4971","title":{"rendered":"Good Little Ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

An excerpt for the new book, Good Little Ship: Arthur Ransome, Nancy Blackett and the Goblin<\/em>, by Peter Willis. <\/p>\n

\"Product-Shot-Good-Little-Ship-510x680\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018A little white cutter with red sails was coming in towards the moored boats.\u2019For the four children, paddling about in a dinghy among the moorings, this sighting is the beginning of an encounter which will lead to them sailing this same boat\u2014alone and unaided, through varied perils\u2014across the North Sea to Holland.<\/p>\n

The children are fictitious as, for the most part, is their adventure: this is the start of Arthur Ransome\u2019s We Didn\u2019t Mean to Go to Sea<\/em>. But the location is real enough\u2014Pin Mill on the River Orwell in Suffolk, where Ransome was living while he wrote the book. As for the \u2018little white cutter\u2019, she has a fictional name, but she was, and is, very real indeed. Ransome had not long previously sailed his own newly-acquired boat up that same river, and into those same moorings. He had named her the Nancy Blackett<\/em>, but in We Didn\u2019t Mean to Go to Sea<\/em>, she becomes the Goblin<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Funny name for a boat,\u2019 comments Roger, the youngest of the children, who is reading the name on a vacant mooring buoy. \u2018I wonder where she is?\u2019 <\/p>\n

They soon find out, for sure enough, the boat coming up the river is the Goblin<\/em>, and she is being sailed single-handed. <\/p>\n

Someone was busy on her foredeck. As they watched, they saw the tall red mainsail
\ncrumple and fall in great folds on top of the cabin. \u2018There\u2019s no-one at the tiller\u2019,
\nsaid John. \u2018I say,\u2019 said Roger. \u2018Is he all alone?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed he is, but he seems to know his boat well enough, as he prepares to sail onto his mooring, using the jib, watched by the children who pull their dinghy clear just in time.<\/p>\n

He was standing up, steering with a foot on the tiller, with his eyes on the buoy ahead of him. Suddenly, when he was still a few yards from it, they saw him stoop and then run forward along the side deck. The jib was flapping. The young man had grabbed the boathook, and was waiting, ready to reach down and catch the buoy.<\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019ll just do it,\u2019 Titty said, almost in a whisper.
\n\u2018Beautifully,\u2019 said John.
\n\u2018Oh,\u2019 gasped Titty. \u2018He can\u2019t reach it.\u2019<\/p>\n

For the boat has stopped moving a moment too soon. The boathook is an inch too short, then a foot. She is being swept back by the tide onto other moored boats. In desperation the skipper hurls a rope to the children in the dinghy; John makes it fast to the buoy in a swift, seamanlike manner, and they are thus, with a bowline knot, instantly bonded with the Goblin<\/em> and her skipper.<\/p>\n

These are the children originally encountered by readers of Arthur Ransome as the Swallows in Swallows and Amazons<\/em>, the first of his children\u2019s novels, where they enjoy dinghy-sailing adventures in the Lake District. Swallow<\/em>, sailed by the Walker children, Captain John, Mate Susan, Able-Seaman Titty and Ship\u2019s Boy Roger, and Amazon<\/em>\u2014of which the \u2018master and part-owner\u2019 is Nancy Blackett, with her sister Peggy \u2018mate and part-owner of the same\u2019\u2014were both based on real dinghies. Their lake is a fictional construct, but it combines elements of Coniston and Windermere, and individual locations are identifiable.<\/p>\n

Book for sale from SCA here.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excerpt for the new book, Good Little Ship: Arthur Ransome, Nancy Blackett and the Goblin, by Peter Willis. \u2018A little white cutter with red sails was coming in towards the moored boats.\u2019For the four children, paddling about in a dinghy among the moorings, this sighting is the beginning of an encounter which will lead…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4971"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4979,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971\/revisions\/4979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}