Sailing the Nancy Blackett in Dutch waters – part two
From Sophie Neville
Nancy Blackett, the 28 foot cutter Arthur Ransome bought with Spanish gold, as he called his royalties from ‘Swallows and Amazons’, is an old lady now. Built by Hillyards of Littlehampton in 1931, she turns eighty-five this year and yet looks pristine.
I arrived in the Netherlands this summer to find Nancy receiving visitors at a nautical festival in Middelburg, while a jazz band played on the quay. She was moored by a lifting bridge in the centre of town, neatly rigged and ready for anything. After taking a look at a number of old gaffers, her crew enjoyed a cold beer and walked down the canal to vittle-up at a supermarket before having dinner in what was once a packing house for silks and spices imported from the East Indies…