London's docks were once the busiest in Britain. They had developed piecemeal from the beginning of the nineteenth century as the existing riverside wharves became too congested and pilfering became rife. Dock systems were built on both sides of the Thames. The largest group, 'The Royals' comprising the Royal Victoria, Royal Albert and King George V docks, created the greatest enclosed dock area in the world. Changes in cargo handling methods, such as containerisation, led to all new developments being concentrated at Tilbury from the late 1960s and the closure of the London docks, along with nearly all of the private riverside wharves and canal wharves. The London Docklands Development Corporation was set up to redevelop the dock sites. So what replaced the docks, and what remains to remind us of what was there before? This book follows the Thames Path, which has opened up much of what was once a largely hidden world, from Greenwich to Rainham and Erith to examine the changes and the heritage that remains on both sides of the river. Also included is the network of rivers, canals and sewers in East London that linked into and made use of the Thames. Finally, it looks at Tilbury on the north bank, where the docks are now concentrated, and Gravesend on the south side, a town with long maritime connections to London.

A memoir of life as an adventurer and sailor in the Mediterranean, by the noted naval historian. Ernle Bradford spent his twenty-first birthday in Egypt, serving in the Royal Navy during World War II. It was there that he came across the profoundly affecting words of Anton Chekhov: "Life does not come again; if you have not lived during the days that were given to you, once only, then write it down as lost." After the war, Bradford married and settled in London, but the mandate of those words inspired him and his wife to quit their jobs, sell their home, and sail to France in their small ship Mother Goose. The Journeying Moon chronicles their adventures as they travel through Europe and the Mediterranean. From the people of Malta who believed Bradford was a spy from MI5, to his interactions with the Sicilian Mafia, Bradford tells the charming and vivid tale of his days as a true adventurer.

In this groundbreaking work, Peter Mills reveals a wealth of insight into the emergence of the Hawaiian nation-state from sources mostly ignored by colonial and post-colonial historians alike. By examining how early Hawaiian chiefs appropriated Western sailing technology to help build their island nation, Mills presents the fascinating history of sixty Hawaiian-owned schooners, brigs, barks, and peleleu canoes. While these vessels have often been dismissed as examples of chiefly folly, Mills highlights their significance in Hawai'i's rapidly evolving monarchy, and aptly demonstrates how the monarchy's own nineteenth-century sailing fleet facilitated fundamental transformations of interisland tributary systems, alliance building, exchange systems, and emergent forms of Indigenous capitalism. Part One covers broad trends in Hawai'i's changing maritime traditions, beginning with the evolution of Hawaiian archaic states in the precontact era. Mills argues that Indigenous trends towards political intensification under the predecessors to Kamehameha I set the stage for Kamehameha's own rapid appropriation of Western sailing vessels. From the first procurement of a Western-style vessel in 1790 through the beginning of the constitutional monarchy in 1840, these vessels were part of a nuanced strategy that promoted a diverse revenue base for the monarchy and developed greater international parity in Hawai'i's foreign diplomacy. Part Two presents the histories of the sixty vessels owned by Hawaiian chiefs between 1790 and 1840, discussing their significance, origin, physical attributes, ownership, procurement, and purpose. Using newspapers and other concurrent sources, Mills uncovers little-known details of more than 2,000 voyages around and between the islands and to distant parts of the Pacific. His meticulous documentation of each ship's itinerary is a valuable resource for tracking the movement of chiefs and commoners between islands as they engaged in the business of building a newly interconnected Hawaiian nation. Part Three connects these previously neglected maritime stories with an expanding body of historical treatments of Hawaiian agency. Readers with enthusiasm for life in nineteenth-century Hawai'i will appreciate the entertaining and, at times, deeply moving glimpses into the daily lives of individuals in Hawai'i's pluralistic port communities.

In 2014 media around the world buzzed with news that an archaeological team from Parks Canada had located and identified the wreck of HMS Erebus, the flagship of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Finding Franklin outlines the larger story and the cast of detectives from every walk of life that led to the discovery, solving one of the Arctic's greatest mysteries. In compelling and accessible prose, Russell Potter details his decades of work alongside key figures in the era of modern searches for the expedition and elucidates how shared research and ideas have led to a fuller understanding of the Franklin crew's final months. Illustrated with numerous images and maps from the last two centuries, Finding Franklin recounts the more than fifty searches for traces of his ships and crew, and the dedicated, often obsessive, men and women who embarked on them. Potter discusses the crucial role that Inuit oral accounts, often cited but rarely understood, played in all of these searches, and continue to play to this day, and offers historical and cultural context to the contemporary debates over the significance of Franklin's achievement. While examination of HMS Erebus will undoubtedly reveal further details of this mystery, Finding Franklin assembles the stories behind the myth and illuminates what is ultimately a remarkable decades-long discovery.

This complete indroduction to the 12-volt electrical systems used on small boats to power everything from reading lights to bilge pumps is written for boaters who are not skilled electricians. It explains how 12-volt systems work, how to maintain them in a good operating condition, how to recognize an electrical problem and how to troubleshoot that problem. This second edition has been updated to include the latest on marine batteries, charges, inverters, new wiring conventions, alternative energy sources and modern test gear.

Constructed on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, Cutty Sark was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest. Cutty Sark spent just a few years on the tea routes before the opening of the Suez Canal and the increasing use of steamships made clippers unprofitable on shorter routes. She was turned to the trade in wool from Australia, where for ten years she held the record time for a journey to Britain. As steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia, the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895, and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until she was sold as a training and cadet ship, a role in which she continued until 1954 when she was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display. The handy pocket manual collates original documents to tell the fascinating story of how the legendary Cutty Sark was commissioned, her design and building, life on board and her notable journeys.