Here we sit, sails flapping, everything slatting, boxing the compass in the swell. The mind wanders anxiously to the horizon, where there may or may not be some breeze in preparation, and beyond, to a world of stories true, less true and downright apocryphal. In this issue of the MQ, all the stories are true, except perhaps for the ramblings of the tugmaster Ray Doggett, whose sanity seems increasingly battered by world events, though nobody in the office has the nerve to point this out.

We begin with Nat Benjamin, builder of beautiful wooden boats and one of the keepers of the soul of Martha's Vineyard, with a memoir that brings summer on and off that fine island joyously to life. Joy of a different kind follows, with an account by the fisherman, crofter and excellent writer Marcus MacDonald of his first trip on a trawler out of Peterhead. Huw Alban Davies, ocean sailor and descendant of square-rigger captains, tells the story of the nitrate clipper Friedeburg and the somewhat cavalier attitude of nineteenth-century ship owners to Plimsoll lines. Then Tom Cunliffe relates matter from the log of Will Stanton, Deal pilot and supreme inshore seaman, whose licensing travails led to his becoming the dinner companion of the Duke of Wellington.

Julian Blatchley turns up off the island of Nauru in the Pacific, landing essential supplies and loading fertiliser to the accompaniment of a mystery musical instrument. Then Chris White, Bering Sea halibut fisherman, tells the tale of a rocky episode in the Alaska salmon fishery; and Colin Dunlop gives a useful narrative of building a houseboat in Fiji using disused gas cylinders and launching it into a typhoon.

William Scoresby Junior, whaler, evangelical and scientist, is perhaps the godfather of modern Arctic exploration. Gordon Davies brings his powerful mind to bear on the phenomenon that was Scoresby and the myths he exploded. Then comes a piece — perhaps timely at a moment when alliances are under strain — from Edward Abel Smith, explaining the events of 3 July 1940 in the bay of Mers el-Kébir, Algeria when an English fleet sank a large part of the navy of France, recently conquered by the Germans, so it would not fall into the occupier's hands. It is a harrowing tale of people acting according to duty but contrary to will and instinct, and vanity - national and personal - overcoming common sense.

Michael Boyd is a past commodore of the RORC, and is thus finely situated to write a brisk and exciting overview of the Fastnet Race, which will be sailed for the 101st time this year. And Claudia Myatt, the MQ's brilliant illustrator, harpist with the Quaynotes and thus admirably qualified, writes about the evolution, history and types of sea shanties.

As usual, in fact, much of maritime life is here.

Welcome aboard!