E. F. Knight

The Cruise of the Alerte E. F. Knight

Edward Frederick Knight (1852-1925) was an English barrister and writer about sailing. In 1889 he sailed to the island of Trindade off the coast of Brazil in a 64 foot cutter named the Alerte. He was in search of treasure. He wrote the book The Cruise of the Alerte about his journey with detailed descriptions of Trindade. His other books include: Where Three Empires Meet, Sailing and Falcon in the Baltic. He was an influence on Arthur Ransome who used his book Sailing to teach himself how to sail and in the Swallows and Amazons series as a resource for his fictional characters. Ransome also used the descriptions of Trindade as a model for his fictional Crab Island in the book Peter Duck.