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 London Bridge to Greenwich to examine the changes and the heritage that remains on both sides of the river. Also included is the Regent's Canal, which took goods onwards into London and linked to the Midlands, and the sewer network that makes use of the Thames.

This amusing insight into Cunard's legendary liners begins more than fifty years ago when Paul Curtis joined the original Queen Mary as entertainments officer. Over a Cunard high tea in the Queens Room, Paul recounts the stories of these iconic ships. Then, over a drink in the Red Lion, he shares the tales of the antics of both passengers and crews. The facts are delivered in vivid detail - some of them things you should know and an occasional peep at things you shouldn't. Simply turning these pages releases a sniff of the sea and a whiff of champagne. Paul has worked, travelled upon or photographed every Cunard Queen ever built. He has an offbeat sense of humour and a keen appetite for the ridiculous. A life at sea can do that to you.

Out of the Depths explores all aspects of shipwrecks across 4,000 years, examining their historical context and significance, and showing how shipwrecks can be time capsules, shedding new light on long-departed societies and civilizations. Alan G. Jamieson not only informs readers of the technological developments over the last sixty years that have made the true appreciation of shipwrecks possible, but covers shipwrecks in culture, maritime archaeology, treasure hunters and their environmental impacts. Although shipwrecks have become less common in recent decades, their implications have become more wide-ranging: since the 1960s, foundering supertankers have caused massive environmental disasters, and in 2021 the blocking of the Suez Canal by the giant container ship Ever Given had a serious impact on global trade.

The major company in the short-sea passenger and freight business in 2020 is the Swedish Stena Line, who operate services to Europe, Scandinavia and Ireland from United Kingdom ports. The company was founded in 1962 by Sten A. Olsson in Gothenburg, Sweden, and was one of the first ferry operators in Europe to introduce a computer-based reservation system. In the 1980s, Stena took over three other ferry companies and their ships. Various other acquisitions followed, including the Harwich to Hook of Holland route The company doubled in size in 1990 following its takeover of Sealink British Ferries and Sea Containers. The company became Sealink Stena Line, then Stena Sealink Line, and finally Stena Line. With a wealth of rare and previously unpublished images, Ian Collard celebrates this famous company.

This book is a detailed comparative study of the decorative work - figurehead, topside ornamentation and stern gallery design - carried by the ships of the major maritime states of Europe in the zenith of the sailing era. It covers both warships and the most prestigious merchant ships, the East Indiamen of the great chartered companies. The work began life in the year 2000 when the author was commissioned to carry out research for an ambitious project to build a full-size replica of a Swedish East Indiaman, which produced a corpus of information whose relevance stretched way beyond the immediate requirements of accurately decorating the replica. In tracking the artistic influences on European ship decoration, it became clear that this was essentially the story of the baroque style, its dissemination from France, and its gradual transformation into distinct national variations in Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. It is an inherently visual subject and the book illustrates developments with numerous photographs of contemporary ship models, paintings and plans, as well as the author's own interpretive illustrations of details. As the first major work on the topic for nearly a century, it will be of obvious appeal to ship modellers and historians, but with comparative examples drawn from architecture and sculpture, it also makes a broader contribution to the history of the applied arts.

Frank Laskier was born 1912 and lived his early years in the suburbs of Liverpool. As a teenager, Frank was an avid reader of Conrad and Masefield and had a romantic view of the "call of the sea". One day he decided to lie about his age and run away from home aboard a ship destined for Australia. Laskier worked on many ships in the merchant navy and it was his experiences during the Second World War that brought him to the attention of the BBC. Frank was asked to broadcast a number of talks on his experiences. This book is a transcript of those radio talks first published in 1941. Through this authentic voice of an ordinary man - not a historian, or a politician, or a great admiral - but an ordinary man, we can be reminded of the importance, bravery and sacrifice of the merchant navy in keeping Britain supplied during the Second World War. From the 1941 cover: 'We are proud to announce this book by Frank Laskier, "a sailor, an Englishman," the merchant seaman who gave the ever-memorable postscript after the BBC news on the first Sunday in October. The millions of listeners who heard that deeply moving voice will welcome an opportunity to read many more stories of the war at sea, which Laskier tells with the incomparable vividness of simple truth, and which made him a great broadcast speaker overnight. Laskier sounds, too, the note of victory that will bring a universal response-"Remember what we have been through; remember what we're going through; and fight and fight, and never, never, never, give in!" ' The publisher of this new edition has included an introduction and explanatory footnotes, as well as an appendix listing the ships mentioned in the book along with their descriptions.

Two things made the battleship possible: the harnessing of steam for propulsion and Britain's vast industrial power in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. With these two massive powerhouses available to ship designers, it was inevitable that change would come to the seas. For a short while France led the way with the launching of the Gloire, but Britain soon stole the limelight with the launch of HMS Warrior in 1863. The moment her keel hit the water the naval world was turned upside down and all other warships were rendered obsolete. But that event was as nought compared to the astonishing revolution in warship building caused by the launch in 1906 of the mighty Dreadnought. If Warriorhad caused a great upheaval, the impact of Dreadnought was positively Krakatoan. Such was her impact on the naval world that her very name became generic. All battleships built before her were classed as 'pre-Dreadnought' and all battleships built post-1906 came to be known as 'Dreadnoughts'. This is their story.

J. Samuel White & Company was the oldest firm on the Admiralty List and built 252 ships for the Royal Navy alone. The yard's closure in 1966 ended 300 years of shipbuilding during which time the company had gained acclaim from mercantile and naval customers alike. Famed early on for fast Revenue cutters and naval brigs, in its final years Royal Navy destroyers earned it great distinction. Highly innovative, it developed and patented many pioneering products while other innovations included semi-diesel engines, heat exchangers, air conditioners and compressors, besides a range of marine thruster units. Not only did the company build ships and boats but it also constructed a range of marine aircraft. During the First World War, White's production accounted for 100 ships, including twenty-seven destroyers, and 201 seaplanes. Production during the Second World War added up to 317 ships, among them twenty-six destroyers and a large minelayer. Illustrated with photographs of these and many of the company's other products, this book tells the story of J. Samuel White and its subsidiary concerns, a business built on a reputation of quality which earned it the slogan: "White's-built - well-built!".

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.

National Service, Britain's name for conscription, existed between 1945 and 1963. In that time, two and a half million men were required to serve for two years with the armed forces. For some, it was a miserable penance. For the majority, it was just something that had to be done but for a lucky few, of whom the author was one, it was a time of travel and adventure. Following a six-year medical degree, with a further year of houseman posts, he chose to serve his conscription in the Royal Navy. However, the Navy required only a small number of doctors and selection was by interview in London. Being young, single and tired of the stultifying life of a student, the author opted for a posting in small ships abroad and was delighted to be accepted. The result was a mixture of travel and excitement with cheerful and lively companions in far-flung places including Borneo, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. As the time for his National Service drew nearer he was unsure of which of the many paths within medicine he was to take. As will be seen, the forthcoming months were to be useful in reaching a decision. This exuberant story is recounted from notes and letters and commences with the author's time at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. 'Put him up in modified Russell Traction,' said the senior surgical registrar, 'and I will pin him in the morning.' Modified Russell Traction? My fellow house surgeon and I had no idea what he meant...Thus began a medical adventure.

Written to replace and extend Torr's Ancient Ships, this generously illustrated underwater Bible" traces the art and technology of Mediterranean ships and seamanship from their first crude stages (about 3000 B.C.) to the heyday of the Byzantine fleets.

Originally published in 1986.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

As daring and defiant as Kirk Douglas journeying 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, there's no stopping diver Hawk Ridley as he takes the plunge into a briny world of untold riches and danger. The Caribbean is a fortune hunter's dream, salted with the gold of galleons long ago claimed by the deep. Now Hawk's headed for the Windward Passage of Haiti to stake his claim. But a rival team has also picked up the scent, and they're willing to turn the sea red with blood to get to the gold first. Fighting off ruthless competitors is nothing new to Hawk...but fighting off a beautiful woman is a different story. Is she an innocent stowaway or a seductive saboteur? Between the cool millions lying on the bottom of the ocean, and the boiling-hot race to grab it, Hawk's about to find the answer and make a discovery Twenty Fathoms Down that will blow you out of the water. When it came to research, Hubbard was not one to head for the library. He always went to the source-in this case a U.S. Navy deep-sea diver who agreed to show him the ropes and the danger. Hubbard admits it was daunting-even frightening-but he returned from the experience with all the first-hand knowledge he needed to fathom the true nature of life and death underwater. "Primo Pulp Fiction." - Booklist

The sailing junk was an amazing vessel. From Tientsin to Hong Kong-and up and down the great rivers in between-Ivon A. Donnelly immortalized these lost treasures in this book from 1924, with a pen and sketchpad and with words that betray his passion for the ancient watercraft of China. Vivid and graceful, grotesque and gay, junks were supremely honed for their particular work. But time and new technology took their toll and the junk is today all but extinct.