E.F. Knight’s Sailing was used by Arthur Ransome as a primer as he himself learned to sail his first real boat, Racundra. In We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, Ransome has John reading the same book for advice and even comfort as he struggles to master Goblin. Knight was a Corinthian of the old school, of the same blood and tradition as the redoubtable Mr. Cooke, whose book Gavin is posting to intheboatshed.net. Knight wrote several books on crusing and adventures, of which The Cruise of the Alerte was for a long time the only title in print. Of which, more anon.
Knight’s books were once hosted on the TARS site in HTML, but seemingly no longer. Never Sea Land is pleased to present a .pdf version with illustrations here:
Thank you so much for publishing this classic.
Not only was it the bible of sailors of an earlier age, and not only is it an interesting historical document, but it also succinctly teaches some fine seamanship which is still valid and useful today.
My copy, inherited in the fifties from a cousin of my late parents’ generation (who had used it as a primer before the war), was one of the casualties of a horrendous theft ten years ago. Much more recently I saw that the Arthur Ransome Society had put it on their website, so I thought it sufficient to merely bookmark the page, but when I looked recently I found it had been removed. So I am delighted that you have now published it - and this time I have taken the liberty of saving the file.
Having recently tracked down another sailing-related book which is long out of print, I have today set up an internet group on Yahoo! Groups, for out of print sailing books; you may be interested.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sailing_Out_Of_Print_Books/
Regards,
Oliver L. Shaw