Chapter 14
page 156
commissariat: supply of food
page 159
quadrille: a square dance for four or more couples
‘speed governor’: two ball-weighted arms attached to a rotating spindle which rise by centrifugal force and so limit intake to a fuel valve.
Palais Glide: one of the first line-dances, and a party favourite by the 1950s.
page 160
‘Slan’: slàinte (Gaelic): good health
page 161
America’s Cup: the most famous and prestigious trophy in yachting was invariably won by the US between 1851 and 1983.
salmon coble: small boat used for netting close to shore
page 162
fiery cross: ironic reference to the traditional rallying-call for clansmen of an earlier era.
page 163
well-found: with a good array of equipment
page 166
cran: one barrel (or four baskets)
page 168
half south-wester – wind of 18 mph
Chapter 15
page 174
pack: squeeze
page 175
cutter: single-masted sailing boat
weathershrouds: ropes supporting the mast on the windward side
red-tooried: with a red bobble on top
page 176
sea-wrack: seaweed
page 179
‘unpardonable heading’: Harrow was exactly the kind of fêted upper-class English school from whose shadow AMD wanted Scottish youth to escape.
Duke and Duchess of York: the future George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, parents of Elizabeth II.
page 180
soigné: well-groomed, elegant
page 181
bo’sun: petty officer, sailors’ foreman
‘Alastair MacRae, her radio operator’: a keen ornithologist, MacRae had contributed articles about snow buntings and the like to the Claymore.
Chapter 16
page 183
fey: otherworldly
page 185
Catering Wages Acts: the 1943 legislation established pay regulation by wages boards.
page 186
Prestonpans: where the gathered clans under Charles Edward Stewart routed the southern army which had been sent to quell the 1745 Jacobite Rising.
divagations: wanderings
Chapter 17
page 191
engine-room telegraph: intercom
Neil Wilson Publishing Ltd
www.nwp.co.uk
Text © the Estate of Alastair Dunnett, 2011
Introduction © Ninian Dunnett, 2011
First published as Quest by Canoe, 1950.
Republished as It’s Too Late in the Year, 1969
Republished as The Canoe Boys in 1995.
This edition published in May 2007 and
reprinted in April 2009, March 2011.
The author asserts his moral right under the
Copyright, Design and Patents Acts, 1988
to be identified as the Author of this Work.
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
Print edition ISBN: 978-1-903238-99-8
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-906476-71-7
The Canoe Boys Page 25
