Racundra's First Cruise take him, "I, of course, agreed with joy, as there is no such rigger in the Baltic as the Ancient Mariner". His real name was Captain Carl Sehmel and his character is also featured in several of the Swallows and Amazons books as Peter Duck and Simon, a wherry sailor in "Coot Club". Racundra's First Cruise Racundra's First Cruise is the first book about sailing written by Arthur Ransome, author of the "Swallows and Amazons" series. It describes a trip he made across the Baltic Sea from Riga in Latvia to Helsinki in Finland and back in a 9 metre
W. G. Collingwood Ursula, and Robin (the later historian and philosopher). Ransome learned to sail in Collingwood's boat, Swallow, and became a firm friend of the family, even proposing marriage to both Dora and Barbara (on separate occasions). After a summer of teaching Collingwood's grandchildren to sail in Swallow II in 1928, Ransome wrote the first book in his Swallows and Amazons series of books. He used the names of some of Collingwood's grandchildren for his characters, the Swallows (see Roger Altounyan). By the 1890s Collingwood had become a skilled painter and also joined the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society. He