David Hillyard, founder of the famous firm of boatbuilders in Littlehampton, was born in the late nineteenth century, at the height of the Big Boat era. His family were stalwarts of ­Rowhedge in Essex, where the aristocratic owners of the enormous cutters dicing in the Solent sent their skippers to pick their racing crews of hard-bitten fishermen. Yachts, in those days, were for the very rich, but the men who sailed them were often the reverse. Perhaps it was a consciousness of this divide that led ­Hillyard—a devout Christian, descended from a long line of fishermen—to build boats that were robust, practical, and within the means of those lacking the advantage of dukedoms or armaments factories. This account of David Hillyard’s voyage from apprentice boatbuilder to founder of a boatbuilding dynasty will be deeply interesting not only to owners of his boats and enthusiasts of traditional boatbuilding, but to anyone interested in the story of messing about in boats as practised in Britain. It also provides fascinating insights into the development of a small but significant corner of the relationship between the people of these islands and the seas that surround us.

Nicholas Gray has had a lifelong passion for boats and sailing. He has taken part in the Two Handed Round Britain and Ireland Race and the Azores and Back Race; he has sailed widely round the coasts of Western Europe and the Mediterranean; has taken part in the UK Three Peaks Race, and has crewed in many RORC ocean races. He is a solicitor who also worked in merchant banking and in the oil and gas industry. He has had an interest in a sailmaking company and once owned a boatyard which specialised in the restoration of classic wooden boats. When not sailing, Nicholas divides his time between his homes in Sandwich in Kent and in south-west France. Now retired, he is a member of the Association of Yachting Historians and has written two books of nautical history – Last Voyages (Fernhurst Books 2017) and Astronauts of Cape Horn (Conrad Press 2018).