Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Little Skipper A Son of a Sailor
    The Little Skipper A Son of a Sailor
    The Little Skipper A Son of a Sailor
    Ebook87 pages54 minutes

    The Little Skipper A Son of a Sailor

    By George Manville Fenn

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    The Little Skipper A Son of a Sailor
    Author

    George Manville Fenn

    George Manville Fenn (1831-1909) was an English author, journalist, and educator. Although he is best known for his boy’s adventure stories, Fenn authored over 175 books in his lifetime, including his very popular historical naval fiction for adult readers. Fenn wrote a number of weekly newspaper columns, and subsequently became the publisher of various magazines, many which became a platform for his social and economic views of Victorian England.

    Read more from George Manville Fenn

    Related to The Little Skipper A Son of a Sailor

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Paul Heiney

      Oct 28, 2022

      Paul Heiney
      3 min read

    • Article

      Paul Heiney

      Oct 28, 2022

      Paul Heiney
      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Oct 29, 2020

      Letters
      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 16, 2023

      Thanks for a great issue (PBO, January 2023). As the skipper of an elderly GRP boat, based on a swinging mooring in Chichester harbour, there was plenty of material to identify with. When I brought Evadne to Mill Rythe in 1987 it was the cheapest pla

      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 16, 2023

      Thanks for a great issue (PBO, January 2023). As the skipper of an elderly GRP boat, based on a swinging mooring in Chichester harbour, there was plenty of material to identify with. When I brought Evadne to Mill Rythe in 1987 it was the cheapest pla

      7 min read

    • Article

      Sailing Home

      Jan 14, 2022

      Sailing Home
      8 min read

    • Article

      Dream Job?

      Aug 4, 2022

      Mad about the boat Dave Selby is the proud owner of a 5.48m (18ft) Sailfish, which he keeps on a swinging mooring on the picturesque Blackwater estuary in Essex The most horrific thing I ever read in PBO – apart from every episode of Learning From Ex

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Knotty Subject

      Feb 7, 2020

      Many readers will be unaware that, a couple of decades ago, the RYA cruising syllabus still specified the ability to whip a rope’s end in a seamanlike manner. I’m sad to report that this quietly disappeared somewhere around 2003. On the whole, the sy

      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Oct 27, 2022

      Letters
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Nov 6, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Nov 6, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Crossing The Bar

      Mar 11, 2021

      The Edwardian period of English yachting is best remembered for the great cutters and schooners of the racing scene. From Cowes to the Clyde professionally crewed yachts competed for big-money prizes while fortunes changed hands by way of wagers on r

      7 min read

    • Article

      That Launch Day Sinking Feeling

      Jan 18, 2024

      That Launch Day Sinking Feeling
      3 min read

    • Article

      Paul Heiney

      Aug 25, 2023

      Paul Heiney
      3 min read

    • Article

      Clean Bottom

      Nov 1, 2019

      Clean Bottom
      5 min read

    • Article

      Paul Heiney

      Aug 25, 2023

      Paul Heiney
      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Aug 5, 2019

      Letters
      3 min read

    • Article

      At Home With Tom Cunliffe

      May 1, 2020

      At Home With Tom Cunliffe
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Ashes

      Sep 9, 2022

      It’s almost 50 years since my wife Roz and I moved aboard our first serious cruising boat. While paying off our overdraft, we lived in a mud berth on a rickety pier attached to what was then Moody’s yard at the top of the Hamble River. It was univers

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Slow Life

      Nov 12, 2020

      The Slow Life
      7 min read

    • Article

      More Things In Heaven

      Dec 10, 2021

      It’s the deep mid-winter, when sailors check their warps, settle down in lamp-lit saloons, top up their bogey stoves and pour themselves a dram. If they’re in tune with the outside world, they’ll also shut off the flickering screens, kill the music m

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Dec 1, 2023

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Dec 1, 2023

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Pumping Iron

      Jun 7, 2019

      These days as I put to sea in my modern classic Mason 44, I feel I’m leading a sheltered life. Unless she decides – for whatever obscure reason governs her plastic soul – to syphon in a quick bilge-full through one of her many pumps, she sails dry, t

      5 min read

    Reviews for The Little Skipper A Son of a Sailor

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Little Skipper A Son of a Sailor - George Manville Fenn

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Skipper, by George Manville Fenn

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Little Skipper

      A Son of a Sailor

      Author: George Manville Fenn

      Release Date: February 8, 2007 [EBook #20544]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE SKIPPER ***

      Produced by Lebannen Luitreath, Dave Clarke and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      The Little Skipper

      A Son of a Sailor

      By

      G. Manville Fenn

      Printed in Bavaria

      1877.

      CHAPTER I.

      The birds were singing their best one spring morning, and that means a great deal, for they can sing down in the New Forest on a sunny morning in May, and there was quite a chorus of joy to welcome the Skipper and Dot as they went out through the iron gate at the bottom of the garden.

      The Skipper had on his last new suit of white duck, bound with blue, and his straw hat with the dark band bearing in gold letters H.M.S. Flash; a white plaited cord was round his waist, and a big pocket-knife dangled at his side. With his hat stuck back so as to show his curly brown hair, his blue and white collar over his shoulders, silk sailor-knot handkerchief, and his browned flushed face, he looked a thorough man-of-war's man.

      Dot was in white and blue too—a bonnie-looking little girl of seven, dressed as if for a yachting trip, and as full of excitement as her nine-year-old brother, to whom she looked up as someone very big and strong, who would protect her from all the perils and dangers to which they might be exposed.

      One must stop to say that The Skipper, as his father always called him, was Bob, otherwise Robert Trevor; and Dot, so nick-named for reasons plain to see, was by rights Dorothy, and they had that morning been excused from lessons, because Captain Trevor had sent a message from Portsmouth that he was going to run over to lunch.

      Mrs. Trevor had said a few words to the Skipper before they started about taking care, to which he replied rather importantly, Of course, Ma, and about keeping his fresh suit clean; but Mrs. Trevor said nothing to Dot, because, there was no need, for she was about the most prim, neat little creature that ever lived. And, now she paced along by her brother's side, carrying two sticks with iron hooks at their ends, with which she walked in her precise measured way, as if they were wands, while the Skipper carried the Flash.

      Now, the Flash was supposed to be a correct model of the big despatch boat commanded by Captain Trevor, but, it was very far from perfect, and no one knew this better than its owner. For Captain Trevor's beautifully swift gun-boat had three funnels amidships, and powerful engines, while the Skipper's model, though it had sails that sent it swiftly through the water when there was a breeze, had a great deal of make-believe about it, the funnels being only pieces of zinc pipe tacked to the deck, the engines, the works of an old clock that would not go, placed in a cigar-box; the boiler, which was just under the funnels, a tin canister; and the furnace a small lamp that had once belonged to a magic lanthorn, the whole having been fitted neatly into the model by Tom Jeffs, coxswain of the captain's gig, a very big ugly sailor, who took his orders seriously and worked under the Skipper's directions. When the lamp was lighted, as the Skipper said, nobody could tell, for when the water in the tin boiled, the steam came out of the funnels, and when the wind blew, it was almost as good as having real engines.

      Tom Jeffs looked very serious over the work, and shook his head a great deal when it was done.

      You see, he said, "the steam looks right as right, but you don't get no help from these engines, because it's no use to them.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1