The beautiful 1920s Alker Tripp trilogy of books about sailing on the South Coast, coastal Suffolk and the Thames Estuary is now available to order from Lodestar Books. Deliveries will begin in early June.
If you happen to be going to the Beale Park Thames Boat Show on the 8th to 10th June, do drop by the Lodestar stall to have a look, as there’s a good chance they will have arrived.
The books – Solent & the Southern Waters, Suffolk Sea Borders and Shoalwater and Fairway – add up to 550 pages of writing describing sailing these waters at a time when working sail was still common, and their place in English history.
But more than that, Tripp was a gifted illustrator who filled his books with pen drawings and miniature monchrome paintings, which in these books are laid out with a between-the-wars art deco sensibility.
To show what I mean, here’s a sample chapter Down on the Blackwater ebb, from Shoalwater and Fairway – though what you can’t see here is the lovely thick creamy paper on which they have been printed.
The books are available singly at £20 each, with all three together priced at £45. To make sure you receive yours click here!
Still on the topic of the wonderful Lodestar catalogue, the FB Cooke compendium Cruising Hints is now available in a compact paperback format – only a few copies of the hardcover edition still remain.
Finally, I gather Lodestar’s reprint of Ken Duxbury’s trilogy The Lugworm Chronicles (Lugworm on the Loose, Lugworm Homeward Bound and Lugworm Island Hopping) is selling strongly having had a great reception right around the world.
I can see why it should sell – I’m mightily impressed by first of the trilogy about sailing through the Greek islands, and I now have no doubt how the reputation of the Drascombe Lugger was sealed.
