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Seamanship: Voyage Along the Coasts of the British Isles

3,778 views · Published 20 March 2014 · 51:01 · Indexed 16 October 2026

Channel: GBH Forum Network · 2014 · Education

Writer Adam Nicholson discusses his nautical adventure around the British Isles that lead to his book, Seamanship: A Voyage Along the Wild Coasts of the British Isles.

In the winter of 2003, Adam Nicholson embarked on the sea voyage of his wildest imaginings. In the company of George Fairhurst, an experienced skipper with half a million sea miles under his belt, Nicholson navigated the often unforgiving coastal waters of western Ireland and Scotland, visiting the outer reaches of the British Isles. The months-long expedition on a 42-foot ketch tested their mettle, both as sailors and as men, as they faced fierce weather, fickle currents, and their own resolution and limitations.

Adam Nicholson grew up in Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, the family home of his grandparents Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson. He was educated at Eton and at Magdalene College at Cambridge. After university, he became a travel writer and won the Somerset Maugham Award for Frontiers, about a journey through Eastern Europe. In the mid-eighties Nicholson founded Toucan Books, and he served as publishing director for five years. He has since joined the London Daily Telegraph as a columnist. He is the author of Wetland Life in the Somerset Levels, which won the British Topography Prize; citeRestoration; God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible; and Sea Room, which was short-listed for the Duff Cooper Prize. Nicholson lives on a small beef and sheep farm in Sussex with his wife and five children.

Seamanship: Voyage Along the Coasts of the British Isles

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