Belfast has a long and proud shipbuilding heritage, this industry holding a strong place in Belfast's identity and popular culture. There were three main shipbuilders, Harland & Wolff, Workman Clark and the little-known McIllwain & Co., all of whom had fascinating and often turbulent histories. Despite this, little is known about the vessels they produced, beyond the world-famous story of Titanic. In this impeccably researched book, Dr John Lynch endeavours to change this, revealing the fascinating stories of the many ships to be built and launched from Belfast over 140 years, from the late 1850s to the twenty-first century. Including an alphabetical ship index, building lists, details on vessel name changes and many illustrations of the ships, this book also details the yards themselves and key characters in shaping their journeys from hey-day to decline.

This book looks to fill the 'blue hole' in Global History by studying the role of the oceans themselves in the creation, development, reproduction and adaptation of knowledge across the Atlantic world. It shows how globalisation and the growth of maritime knowledge served to reinforce one another, and demonstrates how and why maritime history should be put firmly at the heart of global history. Exploring the dynamics of globalisation, knowledge-making and European expansion, Global Ocean of Knowledge takes a transnational approach and transgresses the traditional border between the early modern and modern periods. It focuses on three main periodisations, which correspond with major transformations in the globalisation of the Atlantic World, and analyses how and to what extent globalisation forces from above and from below influenced the development and exchange of knowledge. Davids distinguishes three forms of globalising forces 'from above'; imperial, commercial and religious, alongside self-organisation, the globalising force 'from below'. Exploring how globalisation advanced and its relationship with knowledge changed over time, this book bridges global, maritime, intellectual and economic history to reflect on the role of the oceans in making the world a more connected place.

The lifeboats of Valentia have been in service since 1946, when the volunteer crew were summoned to action by the firing of maroon flares. Dick Robinson has been associated with the lifeboat station for almost 60 of those years, firstly as a child watching the flares, then as a serving crewmember, and finally as a maritime historian. In this detailed history, he captures the spirit of the station, together with the tragedies and sacrifices that make up its history. "Valentia Lifeboats: A History," has been compiled using the first-hand accounts, original and rare images, and detailed records of the station. It is a fitting tribute to the people who have served here, and will be a record of the station for many years to come.

With previously unpublished research and family photographs, this book by Hichens' granddaughter sets the record straight about the Titanic quartermaster who steered into an iceberg and kept control of a lifeboat Robert Hichens has gone down in history as the man who was given the famous order to steer the Titanic away from the iceberg and failed. A key witness at both U.S. and British Inquiries, he returned to a livelihood where fellow crewmen considered him jinxed. But Robert had a long career and was a hardworking, ambitious seaman. A fisherman at 19, he quickly became a junior officer in the merchant navy. In World War II he was part of a cargo ship convoy on route to Africa where his ship dodged mines, U-boats and enemy aircraft. To Robert, being at sea was everything but the dark memories of the Titanic were never far away and in 1933 a failed murder attempt after a bitter feud nearly cost Robert his life. Here Robert's great-granddaughter Sally Nilsson seeks to set the record straight and reveal the true character of the man her family knew. This is one man's story of survival, betrayal and determination.

"From the grisly cover photo of a reproduction gibbet to ghostly folk tales, the topic never fails to thrill. Dan Conlin's Pirates of the Atlantic is a brief but lively account of a popular subject" -Telegraph Journal Pirates have scoured the Atlantic coast from the 15th century to the present day. Separating the myth from reality, author Dan Conlin explains how piracy came to Atlantic Canada from rival European empires who sought to conquer and settle North America. Through the"Golden Age" of piracy, bands of raiders included Peter Easton, the "King of Pirates," the notorious Bartholomew Roberts and the vicious Ned Low, who raided the rich fishing grounds and secure harbours of Newfoundland for their ample supplies, manpower and ships. After a period of time in the 17th century when piracy was rare and defences were weakened, pockets of piracy sprung up in China and the Caribbean, as well as from shipboard mutinies. Rich trade routes, poverty, political strife, corrupt governments and weak navies allowed for pirates to declare war on the world. Their violence blossomed again in the late 20th century and still continues even today. This book is the story of true pirate lives and their echoes in folklore and popular culture. It exposes their surprisingly democratic codes, lavish dress and extensive collections of weapons which are illustrated by full-colour photographs of rare museum and privately-owned artefacts. About the Author Dan Conlin created a popular exhibit on pirates for the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and he has incorporated much of the research for that exhibit in this book.

In 1717, the notorious pirate Blackbeard captured a French slaving vessel off the coast of Martinique and made it his flagship, renaming it Queen Anne's Revenge. Over the next six months, the heavily armed ship and its crew captured all manner of riches from merchant ships sailing the Caribbean to the Carolinas. But in June 1718, with British authorities closing in, Blackbeard reportedly ran Queen Anne's Revenge aground just off the coast of what is now North Carolina's Fort Macon State Park. What went down with the ship remained hidden for centuries, as the legend of Blackbeard continued to swell in the public's imagination. When divers finally discovered the wreck in 1996, it was immediately heralded as a major find in both maritime archaeology and the history of piracy in the Atlantic. Now the story of Queen Anne's Revenge and its fearsome captain is revealed in full detail. Having played vital roles in the shipwreck's recovery and interpretation, Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing and Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton vividly reveal in words and images the ship's first use as a French privateer and slave ship, its capture and use by Blackbeard's armada, the circumstances of its sinking, and all that can be known about life as an eighteenth-century pirate based on a wealth of artifacts now raised from the ocean floor.

The whaling bark Progress was a New Bedford ship transformed into a whaling museum for Chicago's 1893 world's fair. Traversing waterways across North America, the whaleship enthralled crowds from Montreal to Racine. Her ultimate fate, however, was to be a failed sideshow of marine curiosities and a metaphor for a dying industry out of step with Gilded Age America. This book uses the story of the Progress to detail the rise, fall, and eventual demise of the whaling industry in America. The legacy of this whaling bark can be found throughout New England and Chicago, and invites questions about what it means to transform a dying industry into a museum piece.

Admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge, a Director in the Rotterdam chamber of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) for three decades during the early 17th century, set sail from the Dutch Republic in 1605. He launched an attack on Portuguese Melaka in 1606 and signed landmark treaties with the rulers of Johor (1606) and Ternate (1607). After his return to the Netherlands in the autumn of 1608 he wrote a series of epistolary reports and memoranda that were carefully studied by leading policy makers in the Republic, among them the renowned jurist Hugo Grotius, and Johan van Oldenbarnevelt. These materials contributed to the formulation of early VOC policy for the Southeast Asian region in the period 1605?20, and they yield candid insights into key issues of trade, security and the diplomacy of regional polities and their relations with Spain and Portugal. Here translated into English for the first time, and presented with 70 illustrations and maps from the period, this collection of treaties, reports and excerpts from Matelieff's travelogue will be of great interest to students of Southeast Asian and early colonial history and of the history of international law.

Did British, French and Russian gunboats pacify the notoriously corsair-infested waters of the Eastern Mediterranean? This book charts the changing rates and nature of piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean in the nineteenth century. Using Ottoman, Greek and other archival sources, it shows that far from ending with the introduction European powers to the region, piracy continued unabated. The book shows that political reforms and changes in the regional economy caused by the accelerated integration of the Mediterranean into the expanding global economy during the third quarter of the century played a large role in ongoing piracy. It also considers imperial power struggles, ecological phenomena, shifting maritime trade routes, revisions in international maritime law, and changes in the regional and world economy to explain the fluctuations in violence at sea.

This book collects together about sixty drawings of fishing boats at Arbroath Harbour, completed between 1989 to 1995. There are also fifteen drawings of the harbour at Montrose, and of other Scottish harbours relevant to Arbroath, in the same period. The author's viewpoint is that of an interested spectator who likes fishing boats. While drawing, he gained valuable background information from the local people, including some fishermen, that he met as he worked. His notes on the harbours he draws, and on the boats and people within them, are written in the hope that everyone reading the book will 'feel close to the sea'. The main story unfolds gradually, starting in 1989 and running through to 1995. It begins with a bird's eye view of Arbroath Harbour, 'so that even if you have never been to Arbroath, you will soon know your way around'. At the end of the book there is a map that show the positions of all the Scottish harbour towns mentioned in the text. 'I have written not just for Arbroath people, or just for Scottish people, or even just for British people. I have written the book for people everywhere. The call of the sea is universal.'