Philip Walwyn Books

"Anyone who has ever complained about a rough ferry crossing should read Philip Walwyn’s Pointlessly Good Looking. Walwyn, one of the great names in yachting history, crossed the Atlantic seventeen times - six of them solo -frequently in craft he had designed and built himself. A keen competitor in international races, he knew every mood of the sea and relished its menace as well as its beauty.  He had almost completed Pointlessly Good Looking when he died tragically of a heart attack, aged 68, in 2015 when aboard his beloved yacht, Kate, named after his wife, who supplies an epilogue. The book is part autobiography, part adventure story.  Walwyn has an extraordinary ability to make the technicalities of yacht construction and management come alive for the reader. He writes with excitement, humour, and not least poetic sensitivity about pitting himself against the elements.  The attractiveness of the book is enhanced by photographs, and by numerous reproductions of Kate Spencer Walwyn’s beautiful paintings."