Ethel is a 13ft Canoe Yawl built by consummate craftsman David Moss in Lancashire in 1998, and inspired by one of the George Holmes Ethels of the 1880s described in Holmes of the Humber, but in fact named after Dick’s maternal grandmother (the other one being Constance). Her construction is strip-planked Douglas fir with a hardwood skin, with Douglas fir spars.  Here she is being tried out by Jamie Clay at the Albert Strange Association messabout on the Walton Backwaters in August 2011 – Strange Days at the Naze.