introduction - john cadd

gallery of photographs of beautiful sailing boats

Welcome to my gallery of sailing photographs. From my collection of about 50,000 images I have chosen to show you nearly 50 photographs in this New edition of tallshipsandsmallships.com I think might look best hung on your wall displayed for your pleasure. I hope you will want to.

They represent the oldest (Vanadis & Boadicea) or the fastest of their kind (Edme) or the tallest ('Dar Mlodzeizy') or otherwise the best and most beautiful boats in Europe ('Phoenician' for example) and the world ('Summer Cloud' in Antigua and the 'Golden Hinde' in Acapulco) that so far I have been able to photograph. Many of them are unique of their type, for example the 'Kathleen & May' ~ the only British three masted trading schooner sailing.

Racing
The boats are mostly pictured racing ~ even though most come from a working background. This is the major theme of the tallshipsandsmallships.com gallery. That is because I find that boats usually look their best when they are trying to sail their fastest.

New Racing
The New Racing Section in this edition is “the Fife & the Med Class”. Enjoy six of the most divine Regattas from around the Mediterranean taken in 2007. Your chance to buy your own Classic or Fife yacht.

Racing Square Riggers
More examples of racing are the Square Riggers in the Tall Ships Races. Have you seen them leaving harbour in ‘a parade of Sail’ motoring into the wind with a few sails aback? That is sadly all that most people see. I bring you pictures mainly from the start of races when trying their hardest. In at least three examples there was hardly any one else there to witness the sight apart from the race committee and the mostly young competitors. New and exclusive are pictures of the Tall Ships from Alicante and Toulon in a Mistral

Boats that earnt their living
They share one other thing in common ~ they are nearly all working or ex-working vessels. You will see that they are organised into Sailing Cargo Boats, Sailing Fishing Boats, Tall Ships or Harbour Views which include these vessels (yes, yes you will find exceptions). The only motor vessel is an ex-Royal Navy Steam Pickett Boat of the 1890s, to be found in the Harbour Views section. New pictures include lateen rigged boats sailing in their own environment.

Yachts
Even under the section Yachts & Racing you will see Sailing Pilot Cutters and a Carriacou fishing Sloop in Antigua which are used as racing yachts. The J-Class yachts are only sailed by professional crews. The only pure pleasure yacht in the gallery is 'Vanadis' and she is the oldest yacht in the world that still goes to sea (unless you know one built before 1868?). Again look out for the new Fife & the Med Class

Ancient photography
The oldest photograph in the gallery is the ‘Golden Hinde’ departing Acapulco for the Pacific (no, no, not 1578 but 1975). I photographed her during my voyage on her from London to California between 1974-75 over six months and 13,000 miles employed as an able seaman. I made the film ‘The Voyage of the Golden Hinde’ as seen on TV around the world. Please e-mail gh@tallshipsandsmallship.com if you would like to buy a DVD of the 30 minute film.

C.V.
I started Wexford Films Limited in 1976 to make TV documentaries including ‘Golden Hinde’ after three years at a film and photo college which is now part of the University of Westminster. The second documentary I made was ‘The Hunt for X-5’ the search for the midget submarine that helped attack the battleship ‘Tirpitz’ in Arctic Norway. This was also shown on BBC2 and TV around the world. For the next fifteen years I made films about midget submarines, remotely controlled submarines and high tech. diving. Since 1996 I have concentrated on taking pictures and writing on classic and traditional sailing boats for different magazines. This gallery is the product of that photography.

The Photographs you buy
I hope you like these pictures so much that you want to buy one for your own pleasure. The colour photographs include a border as shown which includes the title of the print, a small tallshipsandsmallship.com sign, the print number and my name on the photograph as proof of quality. The colour photographs are printed to order on Kodak paper and are each numbered. They are heat sealed for protection, long life and non reflective properties. They were photographed on transparency film using a Nikon or Hasselblad film cameras. This is the first site with some Digital Pictures ~ but I do not think you will see the difference. The original photographs ~ including the presentation border ~ are colour corrected but not otherwise manipulated. They are sent by special delivery post (Royal Mail International 'signed for' post overseas) in a tube for you to arrange mounting or framing as you wish. The only way to see them properly without tallshipsandsmallships.com diagonally across them is to buy them.

Best Wishes
Hope you enjoy the gallery. It will be updated regularly, so do look out for new images, especially of square rigged tall ships and more yachts in Scotland and the West Country in the near future.

john cadd ~ marine photographer
gallery@tallshipsandsmallship.com gallery of photographs of beautiful boats