It was exactly 25 years ago today – June 9th 1997 – that the newly-formed Nancy Blackett Trust took over ownership of the Nancy Blackett, the yacht that inspired Arthur Ransome’s classic children’s novel We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea. She appears in the book as the Goblin, and was described by Ransome as ‘the best little boat I ever had’.

She had been put up for sale about a year previously, following a ‘last-chance’ restoration in the late 1980s after being discovered derelict in Scarborough Harbour. An appeal to Ransome fans had raised the £25,000 asking price just within the deadline set by her owner and the Nancy Blackett Trust had been set up by the end of May, with all the 400 donors as the original members.

Nancy Blackett passes Pin Mill on 4th June 2017. Photo by Bill Wallace-King.

Since then she has become a familiar sight on the River Orwell, scene of the opening of We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, and countless members have enjoyed sailing her, as well as helping to maintain her. New members are still joining – the annual subscription is a modest £25. Last year, she celebrated her 90th birthday.

Back in 1997, we didn’t actually step aboard Nancy Blackett on June 9th – she was still in a shed in Southwold. The handover took place about three weeks later, on June 28th at the Sail Ipswich maritime festival.

So it’s appropriate that we will be celebrating the anniversary by taking part in the Felixstowe Book Festival’s ‘Suffolk and the Sea’ day. The Nancy Blackett Trust’s own session, appropriately titled ‘You Too Can Go to Sea’ is at 3.30pm on Saturday June 25th.

• For more details go here to the Suffolk and the Sea page.

For more details about joining the Nancy Blackett Trust, see here,

You can also discover more on the history of Nancy Blackett by reading Good Little Ship; Arthur Ransome, Nancy Blackett and the Goblin, by Peter Willis, available here from the Nancy Blackett Shop.

Proceeds from the Nancy Blackett Shop go towards supporting the work of the Nancy Blackett Trust.