Posted by Adam Quinan on October 14, 2007 at 18:22:38 from 99.226.247.88 user Adam.
In Reply to: Re: . . about the lake water posted by Peter H on October 14, 2007 at 13:09:36:
How about this.
We know that Ransome and the Altounyans owned the Swallow and Mavis/Amazon (probably) and that Ransome later owned the Nancy Blackett/Goblin and Coch-y-bonddhu/Scarab. Christina Hardyment suggests that the Sea Bear is modelled on the Teddy the boat which stars in one of Ransome's favourite book of voyages, The Cruise of the Teddy.
However, I don't know if anyone has identified an original for the Wild Cat. It seems likely to me that Ransome would have had a real schooner or a real couple of ships in mind. It seems to be the way he wrote about people, places and things. He would take a real thing or person as a model and adapt as required for the story.