He had done his very best. And anyhow, here, at night, far out in the North Sea, what could he do other than what he was doing? If anybody could have seen his face in the faint glimmer from the compass window, he would have seen that there was a grin on it. John was alone in the dark with his ship, and everybody else was asleep. He, for that night, was the Master of the Goblin, and even the lurches of the cockpit beneath him as the Goblin rushed through the dark filled him with a serious kind of joy. He and the Goblin together. On and on. On and on. Years and years hence, when he was grown up, he would have a ship of his own and sail her out into wider seas than this. But he would always and always remember this night when for the first time ship and crew were in his charge, his alone.
— from We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea by Arthur Ransome
WDMtGtS is Ransome’s best book for adult sailing enthusiasts, and even though it is the seventh in the series, it stands on its own just fine. Arthur Ransome based the fictional cutter Goblin on his own Hillyard 7-tonner, the Nancy Blackett. She was “the best little ship I ever owned”, and he later regretted selling her (to please his wife who wanted a bigger galley). She has today been restored and is lovingly cared for by the Nancy Blackett Trust.
Links:
- Ransome on Amazon
- Arthur Ransome & Captain Flint’s Trunk by Christina Hardyment (contains chapter on all of Ransome’s yachts)
- Hillyard Owners Association
- The Nancy Blackett Trust
- Excellent article in the Nancy Blacket at intheboatshed.net
- The Arthur Ransome Society (TARS)
- Stuart Weir’s The Boats of Swallows and Amazons, hosted at downtothesea
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