Ships Shipbuilding category: 835 books

The early 1930s could not have been worse for shipping. With the coming of the Depression, the North Atlantic had grown very short of its most precious commodity: passengers. Ships began to sail half-full, and sometimes even emptier, and future prospects were bleak. Both Cunard and its nearest rival,...

Since Arthur Anderson invited William Makepeace Thackeray to take a cruise in 1844, and to write about it, British shipping lines have offered passage for no other reason than leisure on their vessels. By the 1880s, passenger ships designed solely for cruising were being built and the cruise ships...

The 1960s saw a gradual movement of shipping from central London and the quays, wharves and docks of the upper River Thames down river to Tilbury and Harwich. There was a managed closure of the dock system west of Tilbury and between the early 1970s and 1980s, the Surrey Commercial, India & Millwall...

The capture by the German surface raider Atlantis of the British steamer City of Baghdad’s secret code books in July 1940 enabled the Nazis to de-cypher Admiralty convoy plans with deadly effect. This book describes the resulting appalling Allied losses suffered by four convoys during the Autumn...

In the era of commercial sail, clipper ships were the ultimate expression of speed and grace. Racing out to the gold fields of America and Australia, and breaking speed records carrying tea back from China, the ships combined beauty with breathtaking performance. With over 200 gorgeous paintings...

The federal immigration station on Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, opened on 1 January 1892. In the peak years of immigration to the United States, between 1905 and 1914, an average of 1 million people were processed each year at Ellis Island, the peak coming in 1907, when on 17 April alone over...

In May 1940, following the rapid advance of German troops through Holland, Belgium and France, the British Expeditionary Force and French army retreated to Dunkirk. Operation Dynamo was instigated in an attempt to rescue as many of them as possible. With the harbour at Dunkirk severely damaged, much...

The Pool of London has long been a busy place. It has been the focus of seaborne trade with the city since the Roman galleys first arrived with exotic cargoes. After the Industrial Revolution the sailing packets were followed by wooden-hulled paddle steamships in the coasting trades, while the deep...

For most of the seventeenth century the Netherlands constituted the most important maritime power in the world, with by far the largest merchant fleet and a dominance in seaborne trade that other countries feared and envied. Born out of an 80-year struggle against Spain for independence, the Dutch...

Overshadowing the port of Chester, Liverpool grew in size from the 1800s on sugar and slavery. Expanding over the following two centuries, the port has grown to take over part of the other side of the Mersey, with docks at Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port and Wallasey, as well as along the coast from Liverpool....

P&O was established in 1837 and maintained a schedule of routes to India, the Far East and Australia, being the first choice for the majority of passengers travelling to that part of the world. P&O later took over the British India Line, the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, the New...

The Arctic is an intensely harsh operating environment, with extreme cold, heavy fog, severe storms, unpredictable ice flows and changing ice. These conditions persist even as sea ice has retreated 12 percent each decade since the 1970s. The combination of these elements creates a very challenging...

The 1960s were the last decade of what might be called the traditional London docks scene. Ships could still be seen in the Pool, upstream of Tower Bridge; one could see lines of ships berth at the Royal Docks. Famous shipping companies, some like P&O dating back over a hundred years, were represented,...

The Maurice River Township area was first settled by the Lenni-Lenape along the Maurice River prior to the arrival of European explorers in the 1600s. The Maurice River became important for many industries, including oystering, commercial fishing, and crabbing. Dorchester and Leesburg, especially the...