My new novel, “Cape Corse”, has just been published, available here on Amazon: Cape Corse. As I explained in a previous blog, it was inspired by our Mediterranean trips in Mitch and Kadash.
Jack Stone, the main protagonist of my previous two books, is almost absent from “Cape Corse”, but there is continuity as his friend Lieutenant Percy Snowden takes over as the main character.
Corsica features significantly in the book, as does the northern Corsican port of Macinhaju, and I have tried to imagine both as they might have been in the early 19th century.
Snowden’s ship is the Oleander, a schooner which the Admiralty has commissioned in Bermuda, an island which had a reputation for building fast ships. In the early years of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution was well under way, and enlightenment ideas were widely accepted. The Royal Navy pioneered, to an astonishing extent, many of the scientific and industrial techniques which changed the world, and I describe how Oleander is worked up in a systematic way, and trialled against other ships. At the time that Oleander was commissioned, the steam engine was in widespread use for stationary applications, and that it was realised, at least in some circles, that its adoption for marine propulsion was only a matter of time.
Oleander is a topsail schooner, and in accordance with Bermudian practice, she is heavily canvassed, and would have been an exciting ship to sail. The benefits of the schooner rig were recognised in the Royal Navy, but fore and afters were not always liked, due to the potentially disastrous consequences of an unplanned gybe, and some were converted to square rig.
I hope that readers will find “Cape Corse” entertaining to read.
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