Ships Shipbuilding category: 835 books

Tudor and Stuart Seafarers tells the compelling story of how a small island positioned on the edge of Europe transformed itself into the world's leading maritime power. In 1485, England was an inward-looking country, its priorities largely domestic and European. Over the subsequent two centuries,...

Cold-moulded wood boatbuilding predates fibreglass and has been used successfully for sailing dinghies, offshore racing yachts, fast multihulls and powerboats, and even rowing shells. It involves bonding together layers of wood veneers or thin planks to make a strong, lightweight and watertight hull....

In the early years of the Industrial Revolution, canals formed the arteries of Britain. Most waterways were local concerns, carrying cargoes over short distances and fitted into regional groups with their own boat types linked to the major river estuaries. This new history of Britain's canals starts...

Cruises by pleasure steamer along the Essex coast have been a popular day out since the Victorian age, and are still going strong today despite a plunge in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s and several tragic fires. For most Londoners, the tradition of going to the seaside was always by pleasure steamer....

For generations of Londoners, a trip to the seaside aboard a pleasure steamer such as the Royal Eagle, Golden Eagle or Royal Daffodil was the highlight of the year and these ‘Poor Man’s Liners’ were part of childhood and family life for huge numbers of people. The tradition went back to the...

At the turn of the twentieth century, new laws introduced paid holidays for the masses and the seaside towns of Scotland saw a huge influx of visitors. Holidaymakers poured from Glasgow, Paisley and the industrial heartland of Scotland on the Fair Holiday trip 'doon the watter'. Some Scottish resorts...

The Caledonian Steam Packet Co. was founded in 1889 by the Caledonian Railway and in 2014 is 125 years old. It originally sailed from Gourock but came to encompass many of the Clyde coast piers and resorts, from Girvan to Argyll. At one time in competition with the Glasgow & South Western steamers...

As mankind gave up the nomadic hunter gatherer life and became farmers, they were largely self sufficient. However one vital commodity was available only in a few isolated areas - salt. These early settlements needed salt to preserve meat and as a vital part of the diet of every animal. Thus trade...

The foremost development challenge for archipelagic Southeast Asia is improved connectivity among the region's 24,000 islands. The success of the Strong Republic Nautical Highway in the Philippines, which uses an integrated system of roll-on/roll-off vessels to move people and cargo effectively, has...

The Stroudwater Navigation was a canal linking Stroud to the Severn Estuary near Gloucester. At Wallbridge near Stroud it connected to the Thames and Severn Canal to form a link between the River Thames and River Severn. It passed through a total of thirteen locks and was eight miles in length. The...

The Stroudwater Navigation holds a unique place in the fascinating history of Britain's canal network. First planned in 1729, it was one of the oldest successful canal schemes, predating the Bridgwater Canal by a generation. In continuous ownership of the Company of proprietors of the Stroudwater...

This book is a collection of historical articles about yachting, with information on design, construction, maintenance, repairing, sailing, and many other related aspects. Carefully selected for a modern readership, this timeless volume will be of considerable utility to anyone with a practical interest...

This first ever biography of Antarctic explorer Sir Raymond Priestley (1886–1974) covers his full (at times life-threatening) involvement with Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1907–1909 Nimrod Expedition and Robert Scott’s 1910–1913 Terra Nova Expedition. Priestley’s service with the British 46th...

The history of the U.S. Coast Guard and its predecessor agencies dates from 1790, with missions in both domestic and international waters. The service has provided aids to navigation, enforcement of maritime laws, environmental protection, search and rescue, immigration and narcotics interdiction,...