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
Swallows and Amazons series with "Swallows and Amazons", published in 1930. It tells the story of the Walker children, who sail a dinghy named "Swallow", and the Blackett children, who sail a dinghy named "Amazon". The Walkers are staying at a farm near a lake during the school holidays; the Blacketts live in a house on the opposite shore. The Walkers consider themselves explorers, while the Blacketts declare themselves to be pirates. The children meet on an island in the lake, and have a series of adventures that weave imaginative tales of pirates and exploration into everyday life in inter-war rural England. In subsequent