Other East Coast Vessels

Coronilla

According to Martin Lewis (Mixed Moss, 1995) Coronilla was a 31' wooden auxiliary cutter of 11 tons Thames measurement, owned in the 1930s by Mr F L Tempest, Vice-Commodore of the Royal Harwich Yacht Club. Tempest kept Coronilla at Pin Mill, close to Ransome's own Nancy Blackett.

Coronilla appears in We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea. In Chapter 3 Goblin passes close by her mooring as she leaves Pin Mill; in Chapter 27 they meet her again, sailing down the Orwell.

Emily

It is not clear whether Emily was a real or imaginary boat. However, given that Ransome used both Coronilla and Lapwing as themselves in his East Coast novels, it seems probable that she was real. She is described as a Yawl based, like Coronilla, Lapwing and Nancy Blackett, at Pin Mill.

Emily appears in We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, firstly when she passes Goblin in the fog, and then again when she reaches Pin Mill and reports this meeting to Mrs Walker.

Rosemary of Harwich

A Thames barge, Rosemary is mentioned briefly in We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chapter 14 where Briget watches her being painted whilst she is lying by the Hard.

For more information about Thames Barges, see the section about Welcome of Rochester.

Lightships

Lightvessels play an important role in We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, especially as the Swallows listen to the foghorn on the Cork before and during their drift out to sea.  On their return voyage, Ransome mentions the crew of the Goblin sailing close under the stern of the Sunk Lightvessel, where they exchange greetings with the Sunk's crew as the latter look down over her stern. In normal circumstances a lightvessel had seven crew aboard.

British lightvessels are the responsibility of Trinity House who have a depot in Harwich, hence the presence of several lightvessels in the harbour for repair. 

Lightvessels have traditionally been painted red, with their name in large white letters on their sides.

Today, there are only a handful of lightvessels in use around the coast. The Cork Lightvessel no longer exists. The Sunk, meanwhile, seems to have been a regular location for experimentation: in the late 19th Century unsuccessful efforts were made to connect the vessel by telephone line to the shore at Walton on the Naze, and in the early 1970s the lightvessel was replaced by an automated and unmanned LANBY Buoy, in an effort to reduce costs. The lightvessel was subsequently replaced, although it is now unmanned and, in 2007, the Sunk's position was moved some four miles east from the position Ransome would have known.

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