Our Little Hour > Author's Note | Order the book | Contact the author
“For anyone interested in our maritime heritage, and in particular our merchant shipping in the first half of the 20th Century, this book is an essential read.”
Captain S.T. Waite
Master of the Cutty Sark
ISBN: 0-9542509-0-7
I have used the sketch of “Amulree”, as depicted by my mother some years before her marriage, to illustrate sails etc. referred to in the log. It may also help if I explain some other mysteries, such as: Standing rigging (stays, shrouds, similar stationary ropes or wires, footropes and the like) were, where appropriate, given protection by way of spun-yarn filling between strands (worming) and canvas wrapping (parcelling) which was secured by yarn wound or “served” tightly around the work. Footropes for sailors to move along up aloft were attached to the yards, those heavy horizontal spars to which the sails were secured. The shrouds were permanent mast support wires; buntlines were sail fastenings - the bunt being the baggy part of the sail; the keelson was a box-shaped structure inside the ship at the bottom, running fore and aft over the keel; dunnage is waste timber, mostly softwood, indispensable when loading cargo which stands on it and is separated by it. It creates air space to assist in ventilation. Other nautical terms are generally self-explanatory within the text and, of course, the Red Duster is the Merchant Navy flag, the Red Ensign. At the end of the book I have appended a copy of Dad’s commendation in the London Gazette together with such of his verse as survives and I hope this will give some insight into the thoughts and feelings of one whose life was largely one of self-imposed exile.
Bernard Anson King
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