Brian Hammett

This weekend (June 19-21) was to have seen a triple event for the Nancy Blackett Trust: the first Brian Hammett Memorial Talk, our AGM and an open day aboard Nancy Blackett as part of the Suffolk Day celebrations. The first two have been postponed, hopefully to take place in September, and we hope to join in on future Suffolk Days.

Meanwhile, though, we’d like to commemorate Brian with a special offer on the two Arthur Ransome books he edited: the classic Racundra’s First Cruise, and the not previously published Racundra’s Third Cruise. Both now available in handsome hardback editions.

Racundra’s First Cruise, Ransome’s tale of his first large cruising yacht, designed for him and built and sailed in the Baltic, was published in 1923. Brian Hammett sailed in 2000 to the areas that Ransome cruised around Latvia and Estonia, revisiting the locations he described and photographing their modern-day appearance; this edition, published in 2003, with his introduction, notes and photographs is the result.

Ransome also prepared a draft of a later cruise, undertaken in 1924, but it was never published until Brian added an introduction and some of Ransome’s intervening notes, for this first-edition publication of Racundra’s Third Cruise dated 2002.

The two volumes are available in matching hardback format from the Nancy Blackett Shop as follows:

  • Special Offer – Racundra’s First Cruise and Third Cruise together for £18 (saving 10%) (plus £3.75 UK delivery; international delivery varies)

  • Racundra’s First Cruise: £10 (plus £3.75 UK delivery; international delivery varies)

  • Racundra’s Third Cruise: £10 (plus £3.75 UK delivery; international delivery varies)