Lugworm Chronicles: Lugworm on the Loose, Lugworm Homeward Bound, Lugworm Island Hopping

Open boat cruising has never been more popular, in the doing or the reading of it; magazines, websites, associations and events around the world attest to this, and of course the countless sailors who just "get on with it" in their own unassuming manner. Two such, some fifty years ago, long before today's explosion of activity, were Ken Duxbury and his wife B; Ken's three books recounting their adventures in the eighteen-foot Drascombe Lugger Lugworm delighted many on their first appearance, yet they became unavailable for years. Lugworm on the Loose describes how Ken and B quit the 'rat race' and explored the Greek islands under sail. Lugworm Homeward Bound recounts their voyage home from Greece to England. Lugworm Island Hopping has Ken and B exploring the Scilly Isles and the Hebrides. The light touch of Ken's writing belies the sheer ambition, resourcefulness and seamanship which infuse these exploits. And beyond pure sailing narrative, his books convey the unique engagement with land and people which is achieved by approaching under sail in a small boat. AUTHOR: Ken Duxbury was born in 1923, entered the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman early in the Second World War, and gained his Commission in the ­Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve shortly after. Later he spent five years demolishing wrecks around the coast of Great Britain - a ticklish job involving the use of large quantities of high explosive from small open boats operating from a parent ship in the open sea. After transfer back to the Royal Navy he held his own command before retiring in 1954 and embarking on a four-year cruise in his fourteen-ton yacht. In 1958 he took up journalism and also founded a highly successful sailing school in North Cornwall. As Principal of this school he gained many thousand hours' experience of instructing complete beginners in handling small sailing dinghies. He later co-founded a boatbuilding firm. He retired from business in 1970 to take up full time writing, and in later years was active as an artist from his home high on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. Ken died in 2016, aged ninety-two, having lived to see readers old and new enjoy his 'Lugworm' tales once more in print. B/W photographs, maps and drawings