Just in time for the centennial of the sinking of the Titanic, this graphic deluxe edition compiles first hand accounts, testimonies, and letters by notable Titanic survivors, including Archibald Gracie, Lawrence Beesley, Elizabeth W. Shutes, and the "unsinkable" Molly Brown. Full of historically accurate details and an afterword by the grandson of Lawrence Beesley, Titanic Survivors and author of The Loss of the S.S. Titanic, it will be the gift to give die-hard Titanic buffs. Authoritative, commemorative and in a striking, luxurious package with and introduction by Titanic enthusiast and expert, Tim Maltin, this will be the authoritative work on the disaster.

With great good humor and a Wagnerian sense of the majesty in an ocean crossing, Juan Corradi makes his sailboat the star of the narrative, and inspires anyone to take to sea in a small sailing vessel, and see the World from the deck of a sailboat. He gives details of her design and build, her string of lucky owners, and the great adventures at sea over 25 years.

To celebrate 60 years of sailing Scottish waters, the author single-handedly sailed Halcyon, a 32' wooden yawl, from Fairlie on the Clyde, round the Mull of Kintyre by way of numerous inner islands to Barra in the Outer Hebrides and to the Atlantic side of the islands, not often visited by cruising yachts. Bad weather forced a diversion to explore the sea lochs of the west coast of Harris and Lewis, the islands of Taransay (of the BBC's Castaway series) and Scarp, famed for its ingenious 'Rocket Post' experiment. While visiting these numerous islands, he met local people and experienced the sometimes violent extremes of weather such as when he was storm-bound in Stornoway for several days. There are stories galore about the island people, snippets of interesting history, legends and folklore, tales of the sea and island life, the Hebridean fishermen and lighthouses - thus uncovering another dimension of island life. Bob recounts his travels and tales, some previously unpublished, in a relaxed and highly-readable style. As well as being a unique travel book, it is an insight into the rapidly-changing ways of island life and a useful sailing guide to the Western Isles and anchorages in the Hebrides. It would be of immeasurable help to sailors keen to venture into some of the lesser-known sailing areas of Western Scotland. This vivid and entertaining story of adventurous sailing among Scotland's beautiful but challenging Western Isles will be enjoyed by keen sailors and armchair travellers alike - a truly memorable journey of over 1000 miles!

Ancient Ocean Crossings paints a compelling picture of impressive pre-Columbian cultures and Old World civilizations that, contrary to many prevailing notions, were not isolated from one another, evolving independently, each in its own hemisphere. Instead, they constituted a "global ecumene," involving a complex pattern of intermittent but numerous and profoundly consequential contacts. In Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas, Stephen Jett encourages readers to reevaluate the common belief that there was no significant contact between the emerging civilizations of Eurasia and Africa and peoples who occupied the terra incognita beyond the great oceans. More than a hundred centuries separate the time that Ice Age hunters are conventionally thought to have crossed a land bridge from Asia into North America and the arrival of Columbus in the Bahamas in 1492. Traditional belief has long held that earth's two hemispheres were essentially cut off from one another as a result of the post-Pleistocene meltwater-fed rising oceans. These oceans, along with deserts and mountains, formed impermeable barriers to interhemispheric communication. This viewpoint implies that the cultures of the Old World and those of the Americas developed independently. Drawing on abundant evidence to support his theory for significant pre-Columbian contacts, Jett suggests that many ancient peoples had both the seafaring capabilities and the motives to cross the oceans and, in fact, did so repeatedly and with great impact. His deep and broad work synthesizes information and ideas from archaeology, geography, linguistics, climatology, oceanography, ethnobotany, genetics, medicine, and the history of navigation and seafaring, making an innovative and persuasive multidisciplinary case for a new understanding of human societies and their diffuse but interconnected development.

This history book tells the story of RMS Queen Elizabeth, the ship which, along with her running mate Queen Mary, successfully worked Cunard's transatlantic service for much of the twentieth century. She was launched in September 1938, the largest passenger liner built at the time and for many years after. Entering service as a troopship in the Second World War, she had a successful career before retiring in 1968, after which she was sold to a Hong Kong businessman with plans to convert her into a floating university. But it was not to be and she was capsized in a mysterious fire in the harbour in 1972, a bizarre and unbecoming end for one of Cunard's most faithful servants. Andrew Britton delves into his comprehensive maritime collection to present a wealth of unpublished photography and ephemera, aerial photography and even Queen Elizabeth's original purchase receipt, to cover every detail of this historic liner.

Captain William A. Hagelund is uniquely positioned to write a history of HBC's SS Beaver, the ship that did more than any other to explore and open the rugged BC coast. Over more than half a century the tiny, rugged ship was a familiar sight as she chugged up the BC waters, charting, trading, helping administer justice, carrying freight and generally serving as a lifeline and contact between the many isolated coastal communities and the outside world. In 1986, her exact replica, SS Beaver, was launched with Captain Hagelund as master. From then until he retired in 1995, Captain Hagelund, who first went to sea in 1940, and the new Beaver retraced many of the original's coastal voyages.

At the height of the Second World War this small pocket-book was issued to all ratings on board ships of the Royal Navy. In straight period prose it outlines all the basic expressions and tasks a seaman needed to know to perform his duties efficiently. Chapters are broken down into: Sea Terms; Navigation; Steering the Ship; Rigging; Anchors and Cables; Boatwork; Miscellaneous (which includes details on uniform and folding a hammock, etc); and Ship Safety. Functional black line illustrations are used throughout, as well as a few pages of colour (used sparingly) for flag recognition. Faithfully reproduced, with a short introduction by Brian Lavery, which explains the importance of a book like this to a navy that had to take on vast numbers of civilians or Hostilities Only men to meet the manning needs of the war, this volume provides a real mixture of wartime nostalgia and historical authenticity. It makes a world now lost to us accessible again, explaining as it does the terms, skills and conventions of ship board life, a life that required a common language, and where failure to respond to orders instantly could mean the difference between life and death. The book is sure to appeal to those who served in the war as well as the current generation who are becoming increasingly interested in the role their grandparents, fathers and uncles played during that time.

Although the answer appears obvious, there is far more to the sinking of the Titanic than is popularly understood. On 10 April 1912 Titanic - the largest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world - left Southampton on her maiden voyage. The only headlines she expected to make were on her triumphant arrival in New York. But just five days later, she was a wreck at the bottom of the North Atlantic, taking over 1500 lives with her. Why? The answer to this question is a set of circumstances and a chain of events that came together to seal her fate and that of so many of her passengers and crew. Nature of course played her part in the form of that gigantic iceberg as well as in other less obvious ways. Most of all though there was human error, complacency and an inability to think the unthinkable when designing or sailing the ship. Just one different action at any stage in the chain could have saved the life of Titanic or at least most, if not all, of those aboard her. The world still has much to learn from the loss of the Titanic. This book explains why the largest ship in the world was lost and just how the voyage of a lifetime turned into a nightmare.

In SS Great Britain, Helen Doe provides a narrative account of this famous and historically important ship. Experimental and controversial, Great Britain led the way for iron shipbuilding and screw propulsion. The book charts the ship's brilliant design and construction, and the tribulations of her owners as they battled financial crises to turn Isambard Kingdom Brunel's vision into reality. Brunel was passionate about this ship and was devastated when a navigational error stranded her in Dundrum Bay, Ireland. She was rescued in a great feat of salvage and went on to a long life at sea, carrying passengers to New York, troops to the Crimea and India, and thousands of emigrants to Australia. Helen Doe highlights the contribution of the many individuals connected to the ship, ranging from crew members to passengers, at least one grand Victorian scandal, and the mysterious disappearance of her long-serving captain. In this way, the ship's life and times are recreated and the history of a technical marvel is given a human face. The ship was salvaged a second time, when she was rescued from the Falkland Islands and towed home across the Atlantic. She now sits in splendour in her original dock in Bristol and is one of the most visited attractions in Britain. This a compelling account of an iconic ship and of an important moment in industrial history.

This latest book from ex- Queen Mary entertainments officer Paul Curtis collates a lively selection of stories about some of the greatest and most fascinating passenger ships to ever ply the world’s oceans. Stories range from tragic to funny, from elegant Cunard Queens to smaller cruise liners, and even the Royal Yacht Britannia. They present vivid snapshots from the lives of these vessels across war and peace, covering such matters as the foibles of captains, the escapades of passengers and crew, the most terrible disasters, and the greatest thrilling rescues. This collection of intimate portraits of the most famous and notorious ships of all time, relayed in the author’s trademark humorous style, is sure to be the perfect accompaniment to any voyage, whether on the high seas or simply from an armchair at home.

Set in a world where plants talk, friendship is hard-won and adventure is around the bend of every river ... 'Townsend has crafted an uncannily rich and tactile atmosphere, grounding the reader in the setting so successfully that I could almost feel the river mist settling in my hair.' SARAH DRIVER 'Just finished this breathless marvel and there's so much to love about it. Wild and imaginative storytelling, it introduces us to talking oaks, poisonous rock and a central character with a lot to prove.' FLEUR HITCHCOCK Orla has lived on her own since Ma died, with only her beloved garden for company. When sickness comes and nature is blamed, Orla knows she must find a cure. Armed with her mother's book of plants and remedies, she steals away on a river boat with two other stowaways, Idris and Ariana. Soon the trio must navigate the rapids of the Inkwater to a poisonous place from which they may never return ... The debut novel from an astonishingly talented new writer A wild rapids-ride of a story, suffused at every turn with authentic details of the natural world A gorgeous gifty book: a flapped paperback with illustration by Marie-Alice Harel.

Twenty years have passed since the Rochdale Canal reopened following a restoration scheme that faced almost impossible hurdles. One of three commercial waterways across the Pennines, the canal links the industrial North West and North East, flowing through mill towns, beneath dramatic bridges and traverses spectacular hilly scenery. Its ninety-one locks present a strenuous challenge for boaters, while it has become popular with walkers, cyclists, houseboat residents and casual sailors. The revival of the canal has helped to bring new life to the towns and villages along its route. This book tracks its 32-mile length, telling its story in colour through historians, canals users, lock keepers and all those who today utilise the canal in ways its originators never conceived.

'James Seay Dean is the noted authority on these voyages ... he provides a sympathetic treatment of life aboard ship in some of the most challenging circumstances these redoubtable sailors faced "beyond the line".' - Professor Barry Gough, maritime historian 'A fascinating and informative account of the development of Tudor and Stuart sailing ships. Its examination of their architecture, sailing, and tactics, especially as it is set within the international political context, makes a most interesting story.' - Bryan Barrett, Commander RN, ret. From jacktar to captain, what was life like aboard an Elizabethan ship? How did the men survive tropical heat, storms, bad water, rotten food, disease, poor navigation, shifting cargoes and enemy fire? Would a sailor return alive? Sea Dogs follows in the footsteps of the average sailor, drawing from the accounts of sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century ocean voyages to convey the realities of everyday life aboard the galleons sailing between England and the West Indies and beyond. Celebrating the extraordinary drive and courage of those early sailors who left the familiarity of their English estuaries for the dangers of the Cabo Verde and the Caribbean, the Rivers Amazonas and Orinoco, and the Strait of Magellan, and their remarkable achievements, Sea Dogs is essential reading for anyone with an interest in English maritime heritage.

Tom Christian is on the trail of revenge and a fortune in gold. As square-jawed and rugged as Clark Gable in his prime, Tom is headed deep into the jungles of the Solomon Islands to find Punjo Charlie-the ruthless criminal who killed his partner. But these jungles are thick with danger . . . as greed, temptation and sudden violence threaten to draw Tom into the heart of darkness. There's a pile of gold. . . . There's a beautiful blonde. . . . And there's a bloodthirsty tribe of headhunters who have fallen under the spell of Punjo Charlie. The trap has been set. The question is: will Tom fall into it? Will he lose his way and lose his head . . . or will he get his revenge, get the gold and get the girl? The answer lies buried in the rain forest . . . and in Tom's heart. And as he's about to discover, there's only one way out of the jungle: all-out war. In 1927, L. Ron Hubbard sailed across the Pacific to Guam to meet his naval officer father. It was the beginning of an adventure that would take him from the Western Hills of China to the South Pacific islands. Along the way he met Cantonese pirates, Chamorro natives, British spies, and headhunters of the South Pacific. He was one of the few Westerners to come away from an encounter with a headhunter tribe not only unscathed, but bearing gifts as well. Those experiences and knowledge proved invaluable in the writing of such stories as The Headhunters.

Bat Conroy--cut him and he'd bleed ink, he's a born newspaperman. Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid--the greatest American journalists of the 20th century all made their names as war correspondents, but none of them would have beat out Bat Conroy to a good story.
Which makes it that much more mystifying--and aggravating--when an unknown writer, filing under the byline Perry Lane, scoops Bat on every story that comes along. Bat's always been the go-to reporter covering the Japanese invasion of China . . . until this Perry Lane person came along to steal his thunder and maybe even his job.
Now, the biggest story of the war is about to hit the fan, and Bat's going to get to the source first if it kills him. But the most shocking news of all is the true identity of the elusive Perry Lane.
As a young man, Hubbard visited Manchuria, where his closest friend headed up British intelligence in northern China. Hubbard gained a unique insight into the intelligence operations and spy-craft in the region as well as the hostile political climate between China and Japan--a knowledge that informs stories like Inky Odds.

'A colourful and comprehensive guide to life on the waterways. Practical, pretty and accessible, it's charmingly designed while providing excellent advice.' BBC Countryfile Magazine

Full-time life on a narrowboat is a novelty for so many of us, and is endlessly fascinating. How do people downsize their lives and belongings into what looks like a large, crayon-coloured floating toy-box? Narrowboat Life answers all the questions we've wanted to ask about the ins and outs of liveaboard life on the inland waterways.

The book is filled with beautiful, enthralling photography of the waterways themselves, the narrowboats that occupy them and, most importantly, every nook and cranny of their insides. Should you become seduced, the author gives solid hands-on advice about how to make a narrowboat (or widebeam, cruiser or small Dutch barge) your home.

Accompanying these absorbing images, the playful and always informative text satisfies our curiosity to know, among other things:

· How do you fit all of your stuff into such a restricted space?

· How much does a narrowboat cost?

· How do you hold down a job if you're always on the move?

· Does s/he (the cat, dog, parrot) live on the boat as well?

· Is it cold in the winter?

This revised edition of Narrowboat Life features new and expanded sections on ecological living on the waterways - recycling, upcycling and living green - and the costs of living aboard in cities and countryside versus living on-land, as well as new 'step-aboard' profiles of more beautiful boats.

The first close-up look at the hidden world of Somali pirates by a young journalist who dared to make his way into their remote havens and spent a year infiltrating their lives.
For centuries, stories of pirates have captured imaginations around the world. The recent ragtag bands of pirates off the coast of Somalia, hijacking multimillion-dollar tankers owned by international shipping conglomerates, have brought the scourge of piracy into the modern era. Jay Bahadur's riveting narrative expose--the first of its kind--looks at who these men are, how they live, the forces that created piracy in Somalia, how the pirates spend the ransom money, how they deal with their hostages, among much, much more. It is a revelation of a dangerous world at the epicenter of political and natural disaster.

Narrow Boats: Ownership, Care and Maintenance is a practical manual for readers who are new to boating or wanting to buy a narrow boat. It provides a comprehensive guide to all aspects of owning a narrow boat and will enable readers to get the most out of their own narrow boat, whether used for occasional weekends only, or lived on all year round. This book includes a brief history of narrow boating, including types of boats and their purpose; what to look when buying a boat; ongoing maintenance required, painting, electrics, plumbing and engines; how to be a responsible boater and finally, a useful glossary is included of boating and canal-related terms.

British traditional working boats are famous - Morecambe Bay prawners, Manx luggers, Scots fifies and zulus, Lowestoft and Yarmouth drifters, Yorkshire cobles, Colchester smacks, Hastings beach boats, Brixham trawlers, and many others. Over a century ago, progressive fishermen began to install engines in their boats. Motor fishing boats have been part of our coastal scene since then. Local boatbuilders built local kinds of boat to suit each home port and its fisheries; examples include Cornish pilchard boats and long liners, Devon crabbers and beach boats, motor bawleys and cocklers, motor drifters and seiners, and the famous ring netters of the Clyde ports. These boats have gone or are fast disappearing. This book tells their story.

Have you ever wondered about the people who lived and worked along the canals? Have you ever caught a glimpse of something they might have seen or an echo of something they might have heard? As the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames and Severn canal wind their way from Framilode to Inglesham, they hold the stories of all who lived and worked on them. From Jack spinning yarns as he legs barges through the Sapperton Tunnel to Elizabeth swimming for all she is worth in the Wallbridge gala, the stories in 'Tales from the Towpath' span 250 years of life on the Cotswold canals. Mixing fact and fiction, they bring the past to life and, like all the best tales, appeal to children and adults alike. These original tales by storyteller Fiona Eadie are complemented by the evocative illustrations of local artist Tracy Spiers.