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You wait ages, then two come along! Your Editor confesses to having recently gained one boat too many for the time he has available, so with great regret the delightful Ethel is for sale, since it makes no sense to pay for berthing and insurance on a boat I have little time to use — my other love being the Albert Strange Charm, and having nowhere to keep Ethel at home. She has been very little used since new in 1998, and I acquired her from her first fastidious owner just last year. She is in superb condition. She is built in strip-planked Douglas fir with a hardwood outer skin so fair people think she’s GRP; spars are Douglas fir, and her coaming and cockpit area are an orgy of varnished timber. Non-slip painted deck and bottom boards. Of course she has the Moss trademark ‘Sea Otter’ headed laminated tiller looped around the mizzen mast. She is lug rigged on main and mizzen, has a new jib furler, Danforth anchor, oars, buoyancy bags. She comes with a road trailer (and two spare wheels) and new waxed canvas tarpaulin cover, and is lying on the East Coast (of England that is). Need I add that she sails like a dream and rows easily? A super and seaworthy little cruiser / raid boat for one or two people. Asking £3,750. If she attracts you please use our Contact page to reach me — before I change my mind!

BUNNY, pictured here by Kathy Mansfield at Morbihan Week 2003, has done sterling service for this writer and two subsequent owners since I parted with her six years ago. Her current owner Nigel Field is now moving on to something a little larger and is selling her. Like all Moss boats she is a picture of perfection in design and construction, and she is unlikely to be on the market very long. You can download a PDF ‘brochure’ for her which I created a few years ago, here. If she takes your fancy use our Contact page and we can put you in touch with Nigel.

I just found the time to watch Red Sails– a new DVD about Thames sailing barges, which weaves the story of the Cambria’s reconstruction into that of the barge trade as a whole. For those unfamiliar, Cambria was the last barge to trade under sail alone, decommissioned only in 1970 and recently restored from a very shabby state, relaunching in 2011. It’s an absolutely cracking production which combines old and new film footage, interviews (including Cambria’s sailmaker Steve Hall, who made the sails for Constance and Charm) etc, with scenes of arch-rivals Cabby and Cambria racing once more in 2011 — and boy do they move. I have no connection with the producers, but wish it all the success it richly deserves. You can find it here.