Ships category: 1007 books

Bath Iron Works was established by Gen. Thomas Hyde in 1884 and launched its first ship in 1891. Since then, the shipyard on the Kennebec River has built dozens of luxurious yachts, hardworking freighters, tugs, trawlers, lightships, and more than two hundred twenty warships for the U.S. Navy. Today,...

Anyone viewing the ports of Tacoma or Seattle will be familiar with the green-and-white Foss tugboats directing huge ships into docks, scurrying alongside barges filled with products from around the world,and patiently pulling rafts filled with logs to mills or to ships headed overseas. Since 1889, the...

In late 1942, Britain was desperate to win the ongoing Battle of the Atlantic. German U-boats had sunk hundreds of Allied ships containing millions of tons of cargo that was needed to continue the war effort. Prime Minister Churchill had to find a solution to the carnage or the Nazis would be victorious....

From Whitstable, with its oyster beds and fishing fleet, to Chatham and Rochester, the Medway and Swale areas have seen a diverse variety of shipping over the years, from the fishing smacks to men of war, Thames barges, sailing vessels, submarines, pleasure steamers, ferries and cargo ships. Geoff...

The 1950s and 1960s was the last golden age of ocean liners. It was an age of many modern, superbly designed ships that were created just before the great inroads of the jet age. The long route out to Australia and New Zealand was among the longest lasting, until the early 1970s. It was still supported...

The 1954 film On the Waterfront brought to life the New York docks of the 1950s, when it was often said that a ship, usually a freighter, arrived or departed every 24 minutes, around the clock. Now, the Port of New York is handling more cargo than ever before, but all of it containerised. Along the...

David MacBrayne's involvement in West Highland shipping services soon grew to encompass all of the major routes to the Isles. The company was eventually taken into state ownership and amalgamated with the Caledonian Steam Packet Co. to become Caledonian MacBrayne. This volume tells the story of MacBrayne's in private ownership up to the end of the independent company in 1972.

There is barely a corner of the five great oceans where Clyde-built is not recognised as the ultimate shipbuilding accolade. As late as the 1950s, around a seventh of the total of the world’s sea going tonnage was built on the Clyde. It is not a particularly wide river, nor spectacularly long –...

HMS Warrior, launched in 1860, was the first iron-hulled, sea-going armoured ship, and for many years was the most powerful warship in the world. Rescued a century later from her role as a refuelling hulk, she became the object of the most ambitious ship restoration project ever mounted and is now...

This book covers every aspect of the dry docking of sea going vessels. It provides a guide to industry for the different dock types and docking procedures inclusive of material management, steelwork operations and dry dock legislation. Many thousands of people worldwide are engaged within the perimeter...

The SS Great Britain, designed by Isambard Brunel, was the first ocean-going vessel to be screw-driven and built entirely of iron. When she was launched in 1843 she was twice the size of any previous ship and her revolutionary design heralded a complete break with traditional ship construction. As...

This is the life story of my grandfather originally written by him during his retirement. He was an engineer, and engineering officer in the merchant navy, from 1908 to 1945. The book describes a lifetime of adventure, hardship and joy on all of the different ships he sailed. From grand liners to...

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the United States has sought to achieve Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan’s vision of “command of the sea” using large battle fleets of capital ships. This strategy has been generally successful: no force can oppose the U.S. Navy on the open seas. Yet capital...

The Q-ship, an ordinary merchant vessel with concealed guns, came into its own during World War I, when used by the Royal Navy to trap and destroy German U-boats. The Q-ship operations are covered here in detail, by following the careers of the eight men who won the Victoria Cross on Special Service...