From a work boat

to a cruise yacht

Suggest to any professional fisher man that his boat is romantic, or even a little glamorous and you’ll probably supply him with his spot of humour for the week. Yet there is a little glamour and some romance in these craft and not a little beauty.

Unfortunately it took a long time, ■almost too long, for someone tc realise that technology and progress are rendering a lot of these attractive and unique working craft redundant Luckily, one Thomas C. Gillmei has had the foresight to produce ar ■attractive volume called Working Watercraft. Sub-titled “A survey ol surviving local boats of America anc Europe”, Mr Gillmer complains tha he is already too late to reach some types, which have slipped quietlj into oblivion.

Though restricted in scope tc European and American vessels, the book is of great interest to the cruis ing yachtsman; for it is from the sail-powered working boats of these waters that some of the greates cruising boats were developed Slocum’s Spray, Voss Tillicum anc Tilman’s Mischief to name just three Thomas Gillmer is, by profession a naval architect and thus, is able to add just enough technical spice tc make his subject really absorbing This is the kind of book you kee] going back to, to find perhaps one half-remembered fact, and end u] rereading a whole chapter.

Altogether some 150 types are covered, with the evolution anc development that makes them idea for the conditions that prevail in thei home waters. Boats such as the Egyptian gaiassa, Bahama sloop Chesapeake skipjack, Danish krage jolle, Yorkshire coble and th< evolution of the Scandinavian anc Hebridean working boats from thei Viking ancestors.

Well illustrated with plans anc lines as well as photographs, Workin Watercraft will be a real boon t» historians and model makers and a: absorbing bedside book for the res of us. The cruising man might jus be able to glean a few good idea too. Now all Mr Gillmer has to d is start working on a similar volumi to cover like craft of the Pacific he’ll have his work cut out, so hov about two books Mr Gillmer? —Join Collins.

(Working Watercraft. By Thoms

C. Gillmer. International Marine PuU lishing Company).