Yachting Monthly – September 2019

HOW TO

BUILD A BOAT

THE HORNBOWER

SAGA: CAPTAIN

HORNBLOWER

THROUGH THE

NETHERLANDS VIA

THE STANDING

MAST ROUTES

Jonathan Gornall, Simon and Schuster

Jonathan Gornall reached later middle age haunted by

failures, particularly the mid-Atlantic abandonment and

sinking of his boat Star Challenger. He was rescued,

emotionally, by the magical experience of late parenthood.

Gornall decided to build his daughter a boat and

became fascinated by the long history of

clinker construction. He chose the

Nottage dinghy design, rented a shed

in Pin Mill and sought guidance from

Essex boatbuilder Fabian Bush.

Although this book is more memoir than

manual, it contains clear explanations

of the technical problems he encountered.

Burnt fingers, lost pencils, backache and

squiffy strakes lead doggedly to the final

triumph: his boat floats.

C.S. Forester, Folio Society

This second presentation set from the Folio Society

contains four novels – Hornblower & the Atropos, The

Happy Return, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours – all

of which display Forester’s inspiration at its vigorous

best. The three last-named were the first

of the series to be written (1937-38)

and achieved instant success. A

weekend’s binge-reading left me

revelling in the quality and variety of

Forester’s writing; from the exhilarating

canal-side gallop that opens the Atropos,

through the subterfuge of The Happy

Return, carnage and courage in A Ship of

the Line. Bernard Cornwell’s introductions

are excellent. A supremely covetable set.

Andy Mulholland and James Littlewood,

Cruising Association

A 48-page booklet provides essential information and

helpful photographs to navigate the Staande Mast Route.

Section one runs from Vlissingen to Willemstad via

the Versemeer and Oosterschelde.

Section two, from Willemstad to

Amsterdam, includes instructions for

joining the Amsterdam midnight convoy

plus an appealing route via Leiden to

avoid this. Options after Amsterdam

include a direct route to Den Helder or

exploration via the Markermeer and

Isselmeer. The fourth section details routes

entering at Lemmer, Stavoren or Harlingen

and exiting at Lauwersoog or Delfzijl.

reached the Scheldt. Ships were streaming down on the
ebb; three Germans in a line, a Swede, a Finn, a
Norwegian, an Irishman, an Italian, a Russian and so on.
All the way to Flushing we only met a single British ship,
an Ellerman ‘City’ boat. This and the Arandora Star at
Copenhagen were the only two British ships we met on our
entire cruise. Although our continental trade is not large,
this seemed, more than anything, a sign of impending
hostilities. Bill took pictures of most of the ships in the
Scheldt and I saw one of them – a fi ne Hamburg Lloyd –
taken into Rosyth as a prize some 12 months later.
We entered Flushing before dark but offi cialdom had
gone home and nobody worried us. We selected our own
berth for the night and were not disturbed. Bill and I went
ashore for some fresh meat and bread. It was dusk and
everything was very still. We walked over the sea locks that
connect the Verbreed Canal to the Outer Haven and along
the canal side. Only the night before we had been watching
a noisy London holiday crowd: now we were walking
beside a placid canal with the murmur of voices and the
clacking of wooden clogs against the stones. There was
music being played somewhere. We went into a shop,
a shop of a thousand smells. I picked out the big ones;
bacon, coffee beans, paraffi n oil, cigars and cheese.
On our way back to the boat we stopped to look at some
botters. A tug rushed by in the outer harbour hooting in
Dutch, and the ripples chased each other into the
darkness. It was time we turned in for we had to be away
bright and early the next morning. Little did we think that
the Huns would be in Flushing within the twelvemonth
and these docks a target for Bomber Command.

Naromis carried on to Den Helder, then through the Kiel
Canal. Their plan had been to head west for Danzig but
after less than two days in Kiel they were told there was
no fuel available and were politely, but fi rmly, escorted
out of German waters. When George returned home to
Suffolk on 2 September 1939 his call-up papers were
waiting. It was almost two years before he found time to
think back and write up his notes. ‘It was as if I had been
conducted through the scene of a great drama and had
just managed to get off the stage before the curtain went
up.’ His shipmate, Jock, was killed at Dunkirk.

Julia Jones reviews the latest maritime reading

£^9

.^99

£^12

5

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