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Guernsey Sailing Ships 1786-1936 John W Sarre Guernsey Museum Monograph No. 8 (Issued as a digital publication - 366 text pages, 134 plates - in Adobe PDF format, on a cross-platform CD-ROM. Disk owners are licensed to view the digital publication and to print a single copy for personal reference.) © 2007 States of Guernsey | ISBN 978-1-871560-08-4

This publication marks the culmination of a lifetime’s interest and extensive research into the history of Guernsey sailing ships by John W. Sarre. Sadly he did not live to see the production of this edition but it stands as a fitting epitaph to his enthusiasm for the subject and attention to detail. It is likely to be consulted as the authoritative work of reference about Guernsey sailing ships for many years to come.

The work contains 1762 individual ship entries relating to a range of 966 different ship names. The details of voyages made will interest historians, and family historians may also find details of nautical antecedents. The text is fully searchable and the PDF files are extensively bookmarked for ease of navigation.

Contents include:

• FOREWORD by Sir de Vic Carey Q.C.
• INTRODUCTORY SECTIONS including the history of ship registration (29 pages)
• THE RECORD & REGISTER – detailed references, arranged alphabetically (311 pages)
• ILLUSTRATIONS OF SHIPS from museums and private collections (114 plates)
• HISTORIC ILLUSTRATIONS OF PORTS visited by Guernsey ships (20 plates)
• FOUR APPENDICES including details of informaton sources (29 pages)

About the author

John W Sarre (1919-1997) was born into a Guernsey family with a strong seafaring tradition and initially considered such a life for himself. However, after a university education which was interrupted by service during the Second World War, he eventually returned to the island and a career in the Civil Service. He retired in 1981 and then embarked on a program of research to collate all known information about Guernsey-built or Guernsey-owned sailing ships. Building on the work of earlier local authors and supported by family and friends, he effectivley compiled a retrospective Register of Guernsey Sailing Ships which will stand as an authoritative reference source for many years.

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