Maritime

The Blind Horn’s Hate (Cape Horn & the Utmost South) – Richard Hough

Published by Hutchinson’s, London in 1971 a first edition. Octavo, 336 pages, packed with illustrations and charts and with endpaper maps. Vary good condition, top edge stained green as issued. Good dust jacket.

Richard Hough’s book does more than any other to educate the reader on maritime history and the geography of the complex channels of Tierra del Fuego. Drake, Magellan etc as you would expect but also Anson, Byron etc and the loss of the Wager and the mutinous circumstances following … a Voyager classic. And the Darwin and the fate of the natives.

The title references Rudyard Kipling’s … The Long Trail … “It’s north you may run to the rime-ringed sun, or south to the blind horn’s hate …”

Avoid the Horn and through the Channels

$25.00

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Two Yachts, Two Voyages (Across the Pacific) – Eric Hiscock – 1984

Published by Adlard Coles, London a first edition 1984. Certain parts had previously been published in specialist magazines. Octavo, 167 pages, illustrated and in fine condition.

Few wrote better modern day voyaging accounts than Hiscock.

At over 70 years old Eric Hiscock and his wife Susan crossed the Pacific from their home in New Zealand to the West Coast of Canada in the steel ketch Wanderer IV. They changed their boat for the return a smaller sloop-rigged yacht. Job 40 as it was known was transformed into Wanderer V. It was not plain sailing on the return and repairs and modifications were required along the way and she still had snags as she reached her final destination Pittwater, near Sydney.

Across the Pacific and back with a change of boats – always adventurous Hiscocks

$30.00

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Red Mains’l – E.A. Pye – First edition 1952

Published by Herbert Jenkins, London a first edition 1952. Octavo, 199 pages well illustrated and with endpaper maps. Very good condition albeit some age given its age.

The Pye’s purchased Moonraker for twenty five pounds. She had been built at the end of the 19th Century and the builder had been paid an additional fifteen pounds then to make her “Extra strong”. She had been used as a fishing vessel so the Pye’s had to fit out the cabin and make quite a few improvements before they set off on an adventure of a lifetime.

They head out from Fowey south to the Canary Islands and across to Barbados and skirt the northern West Indies to the Bahma’s and Florida before a return voyage through huge seas via Bermuda and the Azores.

North Atlantic in a converted fishing boat – The Royal Cruising Club’s … outstanding Cruise of the Year.

$25.00

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Sea Wanderers to Australia – Martin

Published by Macmillan, Sydney a first edition 1977. Octavo, 192 pages with endpaper maps and nicely illustrated. A very good if not fine copy.

Norman Martin’s car hire business got into difficulty as UK Governments changed the rules. This was partly the stimulus that drove him and wife Sheila to give it all up in 1970 and spend five years at sea in their 42 foot ketch “Shebessa”.

And what an adventure. Circumnavigating west to the Caribbean through Panama to the Galapagos, on to the Marquesas, the Tuamato Group, Tahiti, Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji then down to Australia landing at Byron. Down to Sydney and Melbourne before sailing for Lord Howe Island and on up to New Caledonia, Santa Cruz, Cheery Islands. Through the Solomon Islands to Rabaul and on to Madang before turning back to Cairns and on through the Torres Straits and the long sail to the Maldives. The voyage continues with equal intensity.

Martins in the Shebessa a full voyage every beauty spot visited.

$25.00

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Of Ships and Men – Alan Villiers

Published by Newnes, London in 1964 after the 1962 first. Tall octavo, 206 pages heavily illustrated. Very good condition and the best printing of a book published in a number of forms.

A personal anthology by the Master Mariner. In chronological order with “The Build-up” … the opening sentence is “There were sailing ships at the bottom of our street – real sailing-ships, I mean – Cape Horners, four-masted barques, fully-rigged” …. love it!

Then we are off with … “The Real Thing” and then “Steamships” and “Little Ships” and “War”.

Villiers unique knowledgeable writing style

$25.00

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Original manuscript Accounts Book 1791/92 – Webster’s Ropery Sunderland, County Durham, England

Original folio accounts book for the two-year ending 31st December 1792 most likely of or the predecessor to one of England’s leading maritime rope makers, Webster of Deptford, Sunderland County Durham. Original quarter reverse calf with marbled paper covered boards. 62 pages of fine handwriting … appears all the same hand.

Titled at the head of page the first page “An Inventory of Goods etc at the Ropery belonging Messrs William Marshall and John Webster together with an account of the Debts due to & from them this first Day of January One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety One”

The first record of rope making on Wearside (the river Weir runs through Sunderland) was in 1636. The rope was likely made from Baltic hemp. Before 1800 ropes were hand-made on ropewalks a practice that continued for another 100 years. Ropewalks had to be wide enough for four men to spin abreast of each other and long enough to make a standard 120 fathom marine rope. Up to 20 people may be employed on just one rope.

Webster’s plant at Deptford was the first on Wearside driven by steam. It is believed to be the world’s first factory producing machine-made rope. Robert Fothergill a Sunderland schoolmaster had patented a machine to spin hemp the year after our accounts book (1793). It could be that this careful record was produced as part of an exercise to obtain finance for the mechanisation … although the low wages recorded suggest that that mechanisation may well have been underway. We do know that Fothergill died shortly afterwards and Grimshaw a local clockmaker took up the rights in partnership with our Webster and two others. Although its not clear whether the Webster involved was Rowland a distinguished magistrate or John as noted here.

One of the partners in the business was the distinguished Rowland Burdon who later gave up his Parliamentary position on principle although many though that it was because Webster’s Ropery had gained very lucrative contracts with the Royal Navy and he was avoiding any backlash financially … for sure Webster’s were there at Trafalgar!

The records mention many of the vessels of the day that would have been working out of the North-east along with their captains … e.g. Captain McQuarrie of the Fanny; Johnstone of the Nancy William; Robinson of the Broughton Tower; Cleminson of the Argyll; Kennel of the Endeavour (a new one); Dixon of the Sarah; Holm of the Hollow Oak; Neal of the Betsy.

Neat recording of debts and payments with particulars of sales noted with full description for every transaction with monthly totals compared often against some measure of the physical amount sold (early KPI’s). Stock holdings, wages per wage period all set out very carefully. For an industrial historian there seems sufficient information to paint a pretty full picture of the extent of activities. We have gleamed that the Ropery Buildings are in the books at GBP 220, stockholdings were GBP205 and annual sales GBP484 with total wages of only GBP72. Looks nicely profitable.

Interestingly, the Ropery building still exists and has been restored … it is a magnificent building and has been re-established as Webster’s Ropery … but as a beautiful wedding venue … check it out we have shown an image here.

Accounting Records from 1792 …. unique Maritime interest …

$290.00

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The Blind Horn’s Hate (Cape Horn & the Utmost South) – Richard Hough

Two Yachts, Two Voyages (Across the Pacific) – Eric Hiscock – 1984

Red Mains’l – E.A. Pye – First edition 1952

Sea Wanderers to Australia – Martin

Of Ships and Men – Alan Villiers

Original manuscript Accounts Book 1791/92 – Webster’s Ropery Sunderland, County Durham, England

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