Keith Smeaton
Square Rig Sailor & Maritime Historian
Talks and film screenings on a lifetime under sail — from the Sea Cadets to the Golden Hinde
The Talk — "Keith's Rigging & Shakedown"
A film screening and talk charting Keith’s life at sea — from joining the Sea Cadets as a boy to rigging and sailing two of Britain’s most remarkable square-riggers, the training brig T.S. Royalist and the replica galleon Golden Hinde.
This isn’t a technical lecture. It’s a first-hand account of a vanishing world — the adventures, the voyages, and the seamanship skills that a lifetime under sail made Keith an authority on. Narrating over rare archive film, he tells the story of why the Royalist was built to carry England’s maritime tradition into a new century, the great age of discovery that the Golden Hinde brings back to life, and his own part in both.
Running time approximately 75–90 minutes including film, followed by questions.
About Keith
Keith Smeaton is a retired Royal Navy Reservist and square rig sailor, specialising in marlinspike seamanship and traditional rigging.
His path to the sea began at twelve, when he joined the Sea Cadet Corps around 1965. The pull was already in his blood — his father, a merchant navy seaman, had raised him on seafaring tales, reading him the Hornblower novels that sparked a lifelong fascination with maritime history. From the very start, his training included the old craft of rigging.
He learned it the proper way: on working boats. A whaler first, then fishing smacks, French barges and Dutch yachts — vessels that demanded real, hands-on rigging skill.
That grounding marked him out, and he was selected as a crew member on the Gorch Fock, for a journey from Kiel, Germany to Tunis, North Africa. Then to the newly built T.S. Royalist, becoming her first Bosun. His part in her ran right back to the beginning, from the laying of her keel around 1967 through to her launch in 1971, when she was named by Princess Anne.
Where the Royalist was a thoroughly modern ship — steel hull, steel rigging — his next berth could not have been more different. Around 1973 he joined the crew of the Golden Hinde, the full-size replica of Drake’s galleon, built as she would have been in the sixteenth century from natural timber, hemp and canvas, for her voyage from England to San Francisco and beyond.
It was that voyage, and the attention it drew, that first put Keith in front of an audience — including, in the 1970s, a talk given at NASA.
What to Expect
Keith doesn’t lecture on knots and spars. He tells the story of a life spent sailing the kind of ships most people have only seen in paintings — the camaraderie, the voyages, the discipline of square rig, and the quiet urgency of keeping skills alive that are slipping out of living memory.
Including a background to Drake’s first voyage.
It’s history told by someone who was there, with his hands on the ropes.
For Venues
Keith is available for film screenings and talks at maritime museums, societies, festivals, and clubs. He travels to venues across the UK, and internationally by arrangement.
Talks suit audiences of any size, from intimate society gatherings to large festival and museum events.
What the venue provides: a projector and screen for film playback (MP4), and a PA system.
Format: approximately 75–90 minutes of film and first-hand narration, followed by a question-and-answer session.
Contact
To enquire about booking Keith for a talk or screening, get in touch: