Nancy Blackett (cutter)

Nancy Blackett is a 28 feet (8.5 m) long, 7 ton, Bermuda rigged Hillyard sailing cutter built in 1931.^[1] The boat is now owned and operated by The Nancy Blackett Trust.^[2]

Originally named Spindrift at her launch in 1931 (and then renamed Electron by her next owner), she was bought by children’s author Arthur Ransome in 1934 and renamed Nancy Blackett after the major character of the same name in his Swallows and Amazons series of children’s books. He sailed her mostly on the east coast of England and the southern North Sea from her home port of Pin Mill near Harwich.^[1]

She is most notable for being the original for the fictional yacht Goblin in Ransome’s book We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea (1937) which recounts a voyage across the North Sea to the Dutch port of Flushing. Ransome made a similar voyage from Harwich to Holland in 1936 and used his personal experience in the book.^[3]

Ransome's cruises also provided material for another book Secret Water (1939) set in the Walton backwaters.

Ransome sold Nancy Blackett in 1939 but always said that she was "the best little ship". In 1988, she was found rotting in Scarborough and restored.^[1] The Nancy Blackett Trust was formed as a registered charity^[4] to preserve and sail her and to promote the sort of sailing activities dear to Ransome. The trust's patron is Ellen MacArthur.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Wardale, Roger (1991). Nancy Blackett: Under Sail with Arthur Ransome. London: Jonathan Cape. pp. 20–21. ISBN 0224027735. 
2. ^ About the Nancy Blackett Trust
3. ^ Ransome, Arthur. Wardale, Roger. ed. Ransome at Sea: Notes from the Chart Table, Excerpts from Arthur Ransome's log books (1st ed.). Kendal: Amazon Publications. pp. 29–32. 
4. ^ Nancy Blackett Trust, Registered Charity no. 1065058 at the Charity Commission

External links

• The Nancy Blackett Trust
• The Arthur Ransome Society, an organisation devoted to Arthur Ransome with links to other sites