Villiers crewed on beautiful Herzogin Cecilie and tragic Grace Harwar, took tiny Joseph Conrad around the globe, sailed on Arabian dhows, led wartime landing craft, captained Mayflower II across the Atlantic, and inspired modern sail training and ship restoration projects.
Drawn from his personal diaries, this award-winning biography of the author-adventurer reveals both his mythmaking and his achievements. It is a tribute to the greatest sailing ships ever launched – and to the extraordinary man who loved them.
The book won the Mountbatten Maritime Award in 2009, and this Second Edition is fully revised. It contains over 100 photos, many of them new.
Kate Lance grew up near Lake Macquarie, NSW. Her background is in science and technology, but in 2000 she ran across the story of the charmed life of an old Broome pearling lugger, and discovered the joys of historical research and writing. Her first book, Redbill, won the Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2004. Her second book, Alan Villiers, won the Mountbatten Maritime Award in 2009, and her novels include The Turning Tide, Atomic Sea and Testing the Limits. She lives with two whippets in green South Gippsland.