K. Adlard Coles (1901–1985)

... In this book we have a lively account of a cruise from Riga to Southwold in a twelve-ton ketch by a man and his wife, the latter of whom seems to have been well capable of standing her watch besides undertaking the most trying work there is in a small yacht on long passages in the continual cooking and washing up, cooking and washing up again that large appetites and limited crockery make necessary. ... His book is the record of a very creditable cruise of nearly fifteen hundred miles under sail. The record of his engine was: 'Ran six miles. Six engineers to put it in order. Repair bill six pounds.' A less refractory motor would perhaps have saved him much of the hardship of the voyage, but it would have certainly greatly lessened the interest of a very jolly book.

[Arthur Ransome in The Manchester Guardian, 4 Oct. 1926; reproduced in Christina Hardyment, Ransome on blue water sailing, p. 61].… (mais)