I grew up in and around the yachts and sailing community of Port Philip Bay, and here it is, a book full of the boats and places I knew as a kid. Ileola, Refuge Cove, Deal Island and so much more.

It begins with two wooden boats: the schooner designed by L. Francis Herreshoff and Bruce Kirby’s sharpie ketch. From these two float tales of then and now – stories of sail and sea in the Australian south, of design and artistic craftsmanship, builders, teacher-mentors, sprung planks, loss and the rescue of ageing boats. Like an ocean meanders, each tale breaks out from the main current, taking the reader on a sinuous journey from New England in the USA to the ‘inland sea’ of Port Phillip, across Bass Strait to Tasmania and the Southern Ocean.