In Search of Sail
	Robert Simper's delightful sailing autobiography with tales of short sea voyages made between between 1950 and 1998 in traditional sailing vessels. Not just the sailing and the boats, but very skilful portraits of the colourful people and interesting places visited. Starts with the author in search of adventure sailing as a young man on the east coast of England and accounts of crewing on some of the last Thames barges carrying cargoes under sail only. Then at nineteen sailing his boat across the North Sea to explore the waterways of The Netherlands. Also sailing in Denmark, Irish Sea, West of England. On a skipjack in Cheaspeake Bay and big staysail schooners in the Caribbean. The dhow harbours of East Africa and Dubai. As well as covering the twenty-three years Robert and Pearl Simper sailed the 35ft pilot cutter L'Atalanta and with Jonathan Simper restoring three east coast traditional work boats and learning the lost art of sailing them around the River Deben and Suffolk coast.