Traditional Boats in Classic Fiction

[Romeo]

Plenty of posts elsewhere on good accounts of actual boat journeys. However, I love coming across a chapter or two in fiction. It is reading Great Expections for the first time in 30 years that made me think of this. Great account of a long journey down the tidal Thames in an open boat (including being run down by a steamer). Fantastic descriptions...... you shiver in the cold, and can smell the slime on the river banks.

So, what is your favourite fictional boat journey, particularly in a book that is not all about boats?

 

[jerrytug]

In The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence describes a summer wartime journey on a jam-packed troopship to Jeddah, something like: "the delightful Red Sea climate soothed the senses" or somesuch, he must have been hard as nails or am I missing something?

 

[DoubleEnder]

'Heart of Darkness'

 

[jerrytug]

'Heart of Darkness'

Yes, and if film ones are allowed, the boat trip it inspired in Apocalyse Now can be added.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Yes, and if film ones are allowed, the boat trip it inspired in Apocalyse Now can be added.

Yes great film and an awesome journey in a patrol boat, under attack most of time or doing that attacking.
NB a replica (somewhat) was on sale on Ebay very recently, was based on the Norfolk Broads, boat complete with replica guns fitted, looked just the thing to ward off anglers from boating pontoons etc ?

 

[BlackPig]

The floatiler of gaffers in Carousel when they go to the clam bake.

 

[cliffordpope]

Riddle of the Sands
Tom Sawyer (raft)

 

[Romeo]

Riddle of the Sands
Tom Sawyer (raft)

Riddle of the sands was another one that I was thinking about, along with "Three Men in a Boat"

 

[JumbleDuck]

Riddle of the Sands
Tom Sawyer (raft)

The raft trip is in Huckleberry Finn, ain't it?

 

[JumbleDuck]

An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/534

 

[BlackPig]

Wind in the willows

 

[jerrytug]

Alice in Wonderland

 

[johnlilley]

Several novels by Hammond Innes, including Wreck of the Mary Deare. Sea Lord & a couple of others by Bernard Cornwell. Not exactly classic, but believable..to a degree.
John Lilley

 

[Woodlouse]

Sea Lord & a couple of others by Bernard Cornwell. Not exactly classic, but believable..to a degree.
John Lilley

I take it you mean the sailing aspects of those books because the rest of the plots are fantastically outlandish. Great fun though.

 

[pyrojames]

Frenchman's Creek for all the romance that goes with sailing, the bird life, the open sea, the exploration of creeks, (err and piracy...) it's one book that I can read over and over (and it lives on board).

 

[scottie]

Hornblower joining his new ship Atropos by canal boat is a very different but detailed "voyage"

 

[ianc1200]

Art of Coarse Sailing.

 

[prr]

...... the book The 'Sea Wolf ' is my fav. not only a great story, you get to learn how to remast a schooner!

 

[Redwing228]

The works of Arthur Ransome are full of interesting boats; I especially liked the little schooner 'Wild Cat' in 'Missee Lee', lost in the China Sea and later 'replaced' with a Chinese Junk...

 

[Sniper]

Thames barge in A.P. Herbert's 'The Singing Swan'