The Riddle of the Sands

[Leon m]

Just loaned this from the library...Great film!
lots of wooden boats,a must see for any wooden
boat fan.

The plot of the novel and the movie concerns the yatching adventures of two Englishmen circa 1901 among the Frisian Islands of Germany. Expert yatchsman Arthur Davies (Simon MacCorkindale) has invited his friend Charles Carruthers (Michael York) for a sailing vacation, but some clues Davies has already discovered and further investigation lead them both to believe a sinister plot is afoot. Davies is the nautical expert, but not very good at dealing with people, while Carruthers is just the reverse, so these two characters exemplify the notion of "the whole being greater than the sum of the parts." They
stumble upon an incredible scene:the German fleet
in final rehearsal for an invasion of Britian.

[John B]

Erskine Childers was executed as a gunrunner into Ireland. What was his boat?.. Asgard?

Terrific novel. I came across a photo of the Dulcibella( was that the name of the boat in the novel or the name of the boat, the boat was based on ?)
anyway... it was photo of what was left of it after being broken up. I'll see if I can find it again.

[ 04-04-2004, 06:52 AM: Message edited by: John B ]

[Greg H]

I've never seen the movie, but I loved the book. Check out "The Shadow in the Sands", by Sam Llewellyn. It's a sequel by a different author and just as good.

[Ian McColgin]

Having been a long time fan of the book, I was amazed at how well the movie was handled. Note in the opening sequence how he gets the boat rigged and underway, moving aft to cast of the helm beckets only when ready.

Some good cinimatography and boat wrangling in that show.

[Allen Foote]

Great movie. I've never seen that part of the world? Is it really like that?

[Jeremy Burnett]

Last year was the centenary of the publication of the book.To mark the event the British Royal Cruising Club held a rally on the Island of Nordeney,which is one of the Frisian Islands where the story takes place.Members of the Childers family attended.The rally included a trip in a small cruise ship to Memmert which is the scene of Davis' and Carruthers epic row in the story.The Islands are low and sandy,the tides run swiftly in those parts.its an interesting area for cruising but you need shallow draft.

[JimM]

John B
Erskine Childers wasn't executed as a gunrunner into Ireland, thouogh he did run guns for the Irish revolt of 1916 - 1920. He was executed by the Irish Freestate goverment for fighting on the Irish republic side of the Irish civil war. The Civil war, about 1921, was fought between the Irish republican Army (wanted Irland to be completely free of the United Kingdom and the northern six counties to be part of Irish republic) and the Irish Free state Army (Army of the Irish goverment that was set up by a treaty between Irland and England after the 1916-1920 revolt). the Irish free state treaty made Irland a commonwealth under the British crown.

Jim McGee

[ 04-04-2004, 02:39 PM: Message edited by: JimM ]

[Leon m]

Does anyone have info/specs etc. on Arthur Davies
boat? In the movie he states that it was converted
from a life boat(to sailboat).Is this true? Or is
it an actual sailboat design.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The original of Davies' "Dulcibella" was a boat named "Vixen" that was indeed owned by Erskine Childers and sailed around thr Frisian Islands and the southern Baltic. She was a converted RNLI pulling and sailing lifeboat; the counter was added as a part of the conversion, but the centreboard was original equipment.

The original boat lay around in Lymington for many years after Childers married - his American wife's parents gave the happy couple, as a wedding present, a 26 ton yacht designed and built by Colin Archer and named Asgard; this boat was used as the Irish sail training yacht for a good few years until some Fianna Fail types decided that due to her involvement with the gun running she was a National Monument and parked her in Kilmainham Jail, where inevitably she started to fall apart; she has now been rescued and is being made seaworthy again.

The remains of the Vixen were known to the team at Laurent Giles and Partners who were responsible for creating the "Dulcibella" used in the film and she seems by all accounts to be a very accurate recreation of Childers' boat.

[shamus]

Dulcibella may be loosely based upon Vixen, a lifeboat which Childers owned. (He may in fact have owned two Vixens almost identical). She was apparently 28ft wl length 7'9" beam and 4 ft draught. This only roughly approximates Dulcibella which is given as 9ft beam.RNLI lifeboats of the time were apparently produced in 28 ft and 30 ft as standard, but not with 9' beam, and it has been speculated that this is a typesetting error.

[skuthorp]

Saw a Documentary here last year on Childers. Concentrated on the importance of the book and associated info to the British military and it's consequences for WW2. He supposedly had some meetings with the Admiralty, he war a Major in the army I think and was decorated.
I'll try to track it down.

[Ian McColgin]

There's actually some good scholarship that shows how far off the mark he was, militarily. Even the idea of a yachtsman based sort of civil shores defence force - like our own 'hooligan navy' was fairly dim in the event. Which is not to denigrate the herioic and seamanlike contributions of the reserve.

Riddle of the Sands is regarded as the first modern spy novel and has some marvelous descriptive moments but neither the British nor the Gernman high command took it as serious strategy.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

He was commissioned in the Royal Naval Air Service and was decorated.

[John B]

this was the site I recently looked at.
http://www.yalumba.co.uk/Framesets/Dulcibella.htm

[martin schulz]

Originally posted by Allen Foote:
Great movie. I've never seen that part of the world? Is it really like that?Yep it is. Come over for personal experience!

I wonder if Leon saw the movie version with Micheal York? That one even starts in Flensburg and partly shows Boats from the Flensburg Museumharbour.

[Leon m]

Originally posted by martin schulz:
[I wonder if Leon saw the movie version with Micheal York? That one even starts in Flensburg and partly shows Boats from the Flensburg Museumharbour.yep thats the one I saw.

[ahp]

In small "Small Boat Sailing" by Knight, written about 1905, he describes a yacht that he once owned. It was a converted P and O lifeboat rigged as a yawl, but with lee boards. His adventures in this little yacht in the Baltic and the Frisian Island are found in his "The Alert in the Baltic" and "The Voyage (?) of the Alert". I have not read them.

Davies had copy of one of these in Dulcibela's little bookshelf.