Classic Boat

Colin Archer and the Blue Nile

Despite our take on these things today, expeditions of Victorian and Edwardian times were in their day celebrated as brave missions to thrust forward the frontiers of mighty Empires across the globe. Two fascinating examples are Northrop Mcmillan’s Blue Nile explorations of 1903 and 1905, where the very best of British marine engineering failed spectacularly, resulting in probably Colin Archer’s strangest commissions ever!

At 6ft 3 and 20 stone, American explorer William Northrup McMillan was a

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