" This is a book like no other. I've made a seamanlike effort to squeeze it into one of the recognised genres of marine writing, but it’s been like trying to stow a spinnaker pole athwartships. It just won’t go.

    Working Traditional Sail isn’t set out like a technical text, but it’s so full of sound advice, wrinkles, and generously shared, forgotten skills that nobody who sails a proper boat should be without it. It isn’t a history book as such, yet after you’ve read it, you are a great deal the wiser about how gaff rig started, how it was used in the past, and how it shaped the lives of the men who grew up in the shade of its curves. Although the work doesn’t purport to be a social commentary, its details and anecdotes about the men who reaped the shoal waters of the East Coast of England and the North Sea are fascinating and often hilarious. Indeed, the whole culture of this charismatic shore is something which the authors have pulsing through their veins, along with a gritty helping of brine passed on by their forebears.

    If you want the real feel of the extraordinary people who sailed the creeks and open seas around the Thames estuary, you can’t do better than spend time with Michael Emmett and his shipmate aboard the Black Rose. If this isn’t going to come your way sometime soon, the book offers a very close second prize. It also confers the advantage that you can enjoy it tucked up in your bunk, dry and warm in the lee of a sheltering headland.

    So read on. You’ll learn something, whoever you are. I did, for one. And you’ll laugh for certain. The guiding star of the true sailor is never to take himself or the grimmest of circumstances too seriously. These two sailormen understand that full well. You might even cry a little when you think of how much has been lost in one direction by the headlong pursuit of sometimes thoughtless gain in another. One thing’s for sure, though. You’ll be reminded without being told that, above all else, the storm warrior who lives to tell the tale respects the sea and the boats that sail over it.

Serve the ship, and she will serve you." 

         Tom Cunliffe                                 Bucklers Hard, June 2009

415 pages
377 photos & illustrations

PRICE: £ 49.95 + p&p

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M.C.R. Emmett
Traditional Charter
The Holt
 Butt Lane
 Maldon
  Essex
  UK
  CM9 5HD