Captain Adrian Small Collection

Adrian Small (1929 – 2020) was the last man in the UK to have risen from an apprenticeship in a commercial sailing ship to command as a Master in Sail. Aged only 16, he joined the four-masted barque Passat, owned by the well-known Captain Ericson, in the Finnish Aland Islands. He was a talented draughtsman from an early age, drawing and sketching sailing ships. He remained with the Passat for two years, making voyages to South Africa, Australia and rounding Cape Horn for the first time. The following years were filled with nautical college and various voyages to gain his ‘mates’ certificate.

In 1954 he responded to a newspaper advertisement seeking crew for a sailing vessel. This is how he came to meet Alan Villiers and sailed as 2nd mate on the Pequod to film the Hollywood movie ‘Moby Dick’, starring Gregory Peck. The friendship with Alan Villiers lasted until Villiers’ passing in 1982. Adrian joined him for a second time in Brixham to sail the Mayflower II across the Atlantic. They then headed to the Mediterranean to take charge of three sailing vessels which were used in films such as ‘Billy Budd’, ‘HMS Defiant’, ‘Son of Captain Blood’ and ‘Treasure Island’. Throughout filming in the early 1960s, Adrian’s young family joined him in Spain.

In 1965 he joined Villiers for their final filming project for the movie ‘Hawaii’ with Julie Andrews and Max von Sydow. Adrian was injured during filming, and it left him with a limp for the rest of his life. In 1968 he took command of the Hudson’s Bay Company replica ketch Nonsuch and remained with the vessel for four years. He then took command of the replica Golden Hinde and took her to Japan to film the film series ‘Shogun’. He ended his seagoing life in the late 1980s by taking command of the replica sailing vessel Bounty and sailing her from Rio de Janeiro to Sydney.

The Captain Adrian Small collection was deposited in the Brunel Institute by the family after his passing. It contains Adrian’s research archive including files of several thousand sailing vessels, meticulously researched and written out in beautiful handwriting. The collection further contains diaries and logs, notebooks, materials relating to his apprenticeship on Passat in the 1940s, as well as hundreds of photographs he took of sailing vessels all around the world, and materials relating to the various film and replica vessels.