A couple of years ago I had reason to do some research into ships and sailing. While I'll probably never actually do any sailing, that didn't stop me from wanting to learn more about it and how it's done. So I looked around and found a few books about the subject. As frequently happens in my library, they fall into several different categories:
| Technology of ships | Tales of ships and sailors | RMS Titanic | Other shipwrecks |
The technology of ships and sailing
These books are about the technology and history of ships and sailing.
THE BOOK OF OLD SHIPS: From Egyptian Galleys to Clipper Ships
Culver, Henry B.
c.1992, Dover Books
ISBN: 0-486-27332-6
A survey of a number of ship designs from throughout history, with excellent line drawings and detailed descriptions of the ships, how they worked, and how they were used.
THE LORE OF SHIPS
Various authors
c.1975, Crescent Books
ISBN: 0-517-32893-3
A huge coffee-table book that covers at least the basics of every aspect of ships and boats: history, ship and boat types, their technology, how they work, knots and ropes, engines, sails, even the international signal flag code. I have this as one of a set of three; the other two are The Lore of Trains and The Lore of Airplanes.
THE MARINER'S DICTIONARY
Bradford, Gershom
c.1952, Weathervane Books
ISBN:
ROYCE'S SAILING ILLUSTRATED
Royce, Patrick M.
c.1958, Royce Publications
ISBN:
A small and well-done guide to basic sailing terms and maneuvers. The illustrations help a lot in understanding the terminology. Unfortunately, I believe this useful little book is long out of print; I found my copy in a secondhand bookshop.
SAIL AND POWER, 2ND EDITION*
Henderson and Dunbar
c.1973, US Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 0-87021-575-2
This is an official United States Naval Academy training manual, used to teach small-boat handling to Naval Academy midshipmen. As one would expect of a naval training manual, it is very precise and very thorough. It's regularly updated with new material and new technologies.
SAILS THROUGH THE CENTURIES
Svensson and Macfie
c.1965, Macmillan Press
ISBN:
A survey of large sailing ships through the centuries. It contains descriptions and excellent line drawings of sixty-seven distinct ship types, from a Roman galley circa 200 AD to an 1800 ship of the line. The descriptions include commentaries on the evolution of sails and sail types over time.
THE TALL SHIPS: A SAILING CELEBRATION
Clark, Hyla M.
c.1976, Tree Communications
ISBN: 0-8467-0237-1
Because of their tall masts, deepwater sailing ships are sometimes called "Tall Ships." In 1976, a large number of Tall Ships took part in a special celebration of the bicentennial of the United States of America. It became known as "Tall Ships Celebration" or "Operation Sail 1976." This is a souvenir guidebook produced for Operation Sail, which includes photographs and descriptive text and photographs for all the Tall Ships that took part.
THE TALL SHIPS 1986
Liberman, Cy and Pat
c.1986, Middle Atlantic Press
ISBN: 0-912608-29-3
Tall Ships celebrations have become a regular feature in US ports, on both coasts and even sometimes on the Great Lakes. I saw a small Tall Ships show in Chicago in 2000. This book is the souvenir guidebook to Tall Ships 1986, including pictures and descriptions of all the participating ships and a guide to types of sailing ships.
WHEN CHINA RULED THE SEAS*: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne
Levathes, Louis
c.1994, Oxford Univ. Press
ISBN: 0-19-511207-5
A look at the great era of Chinese seafaring, long before Europeans dominated the oceans. In the fifteenth century, China built a huge overseas empire, and constructed a fleet of huge ships to travel its sea-lanes and collect tribute. The Treasure Fleet of Admiral Zheng He included the largest wooden ships ever constructed: gigantic nine-masted cargo junks which may have been over five hundred feet long.
These are books about ships and boats and the men and women who sail them.
BEFORE THE WIND: The Memoir of an American Sea Captain 1808-1833
Tyng, Charles
c.1999, Viking Press
ISBN: 0-670-88632-7
THE HUNGRY OCEAN
Greenlaw, Linda
c.1999, Hyperion Books
ISBN: 0-7868-8541-6
Linda Greenlaw spent much of her adult life as a swordboat skipper, commanding the swordfishing boat Hannah Boden on voyages out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. She caught the public eye when she was mentioned by Sebastian Junger in his book THE PERFECT STORM. After that, she decided to write a book of her own about an ordinary swordfishing trip aboard her ship. This excellent and well-written book is the result. Greenlaw mixes an episodic account of a typical swordfishing voyage with "mug-ups," or short interludes of fishermen's gossip and tall tales.
THE LOBSTER CHRONICLES: Life on a Very Small Island
Greenlaw, Linda
c.2002, Hyperion Books
ISBN: 0-7868-6677-2
In 1996 Linda Greenlaw took a break from swordfishing and moved back to the place she grew up, the island of Isle au Haut in Penobscot Bay, Maine. There she tried her hand at lobstering. This book is her account of "a year in the life" on this very small island and very close-knit islander community.
OLD IRONSIDES: THE STORY OF USS CONSTITUTION
Horgan, Thomas
c.1963, Burdette & Co.
ISBN:
The U.S.S. Constitution was one of the first warships constructed for the fledgling US Navy. She was the contemporary equivalent of a battlecruiser: more heavily armed than any typical frigate, faster and more maneuverable than any ship of the line. She had a long and storied career, earning the nickname "Old Ironsides" because of her metal armor.
MEN, SHIPS, AND THE SEA (2nd ed.)
Villiers, Captain Allen
c.1973, National Geographic Society
ISBN: 0-87044-018-7
A review of the history of men, ships, and sea voyages over time, from the earliest dugout canoes to modern cargo ships and racing yachts. Superbly done as National Geographic books usually are, with superb photographs and wonderful, well-written articles.
SCHOONER: Bluenose and Bluenose II
Silver Donald Cameron
c.1984, Seal Books
ISBN: 0-7704-1861-9
The Bluenose was a famous Canadian schooner built as part fishing ship and part racer. Races between working schooners (and betting on the races) was a closet industry in the early 1900s. Bluenose won dozens of races during her career, and is widely considered the best raceing schooner ever built. In 1963 a replica of Bluenose was built by the government of Nova Scotia and turned into a traveling ambassador for Canada. In 1983 Silver Donald Cameron joined Bluenose II's crew for her annual voyage. In this book he mixes firsthand accounts of life aboard Bluenose II with a biography of her namesake.
SHIPS AND SEAMEN
Lloyd, Christopher
c.1961, World Publishing
ISBN:
UNDER THE BLACK FLAG: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates
Cordingly, David
c.1995, Harvest Books
ISBN: 0-15-600549-2
A modern re-examination of piracy in the 1600s and 1700s, focusing on the "Golden Age" of piracy in the Caribbean Sea and along the Spanish Main. Cordingly examines the careers of some of the famous pirates and also looks at the everyday reality of life as a pirate. He does an effective job of dispelling the aura of romanticism that grew up concerning piracy in the last hundred years or so.
The Royal Mail Steamship (RMS) Titanic is one of the most famous ships of all time. It's also one of the most written-about ships, and shipwrecks, of all time. It was probably inevitable that I'd accumulate a number of books about it.
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
Lord, Walter
c.1955, Bantam Books
ISBN: 0-553-10679-1
Walter Lord's classic book on the sinking of RMS Titanic. The book follows the Titanic's voyage in chronological order from the time she left Southampton through the sinking and the aftermath. Lord uses the official record and survivors' accounts to construct a very detailed description of the ship's last days. If you can only have one book about the Titanic, this is the one to have. If you can only have two, then this should be one, and its sequel The Night Lives On should be the other.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE TITANIC
Ballard, Robert
c.1987, Warner Books
ISBN: 0-446-67174-6
Robert Ballard's personal first-hand account of the two expeditions in 1984 and 1985 that resulted in the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic.
HER NAME, TITANIC
Pellegrino, Charles
c.1988, Avon
ISBN: 0-380-70892-2
Charles Pellegrino is an astronomer and astro-engineer who worked on several spaceprobes before joining Robert Ballard's undersea expeditions. He was on the expeditions that discovered the wreck of the Titanic. In this book, he combines his recollections of that expedition with a well-done recreation of the great liner's last voyage.
THE NIGHT LIVES ON
Lord, Walter
c.1986, Jove
ISBN: 0-515-09250-9
After the wreck of the Titanic was found in 1985, Walter Lord realized that his first book about the Titanic, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, had been incorrect in some aspects and incomplete in others. So he wrote THE NIGHT LIVES ON as a sequel, correcting the things he'd gotten wrong and adding information that hadn't found its way into the first book. In my opinion, Lord's two books are the definitive account of the Titanic disaster. Other books add details and explore various aspects of the ship and her death in more detail, but for an overall account of the whole subject, it's best to start with Lord's two books and go from there.
THE TITANIC DISASTER HEARINGS
Kuntz, Tom (ed.)
c.1998, Pocket Books
ISBN: 0-671-02553-8
A complete transcript in book form of the United States Senate hearings into the sinking of RMS Titanic.
THE TITANIC
Wade, Wyn Craig
c.1986, Penguin
ISBN: 0-14-009635-3
Still another account of the Titanic's building and last voyage, written as bits of original accounts mixed with analysis based on everything that's been learned about the sinking.
TITANIC: A SURVIVOR'S STORY
Gracie, Col. Archibald
c.1985, Alan Sutton Publishing
ISBN: 0-86299-179-X
Colonel Gracie was a passenger aboard the Titanic who also played a major role in the events after the collision with the iceberg. He was one of the few first-class passengers saved.
The RMS Titanic isn't the only famous shipwreck in history. There have been many others. A few of them have been important enough to write books about:
GRAVEYARD OF THE LAKES
Thompson, Mark
c.2000, Wayne State Univ Press
ISBN: 0-8143-2889-X
The five Great Lakes -- Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario -- together form the largest contiguous (more or less) body of fresh water in the world. These five "Sweetwater Seas" have been traversed by ships and boats of all sizes for more than three hundred years. For as long as there have been ships on the Lakes there have also been shipwrecks there. Thousands of individual wrecks are recorded, and it's generally believed that there are many more that weren't recorded. This book looks at the history of ships and shipwrecks on the Lakes, from the earliest sailing sloops all the way up to the mighty Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975.
THE PERFECT STORM
Junger, Sebastian
c.1997, HarperPaperbacks
ISBN: 0-06-101351-X
In October 1991, a confluence of several weather systems produced what meteorologists call a "perfect storm" in the Atlantic Ocean south of Nova Scotia, between Georges Bank and the Grand Banks. The swordfishing ship Andrea Gail with her six-man crew was caught in the storm and became one of its several victims. This book is an account of the storm from several viewpoints, mixed with a fictional retelling of the Andrea Gail's last days, done as accurately as the author could.
SHIP OF GOLD IN THE DEEP BLUE SEA
Kinder, Gary
c.1998, Vintage Books
ISBN: 0-375-70337-3
THE TERRIBLE HOURS
Maas, Peter
c.1999, Harper Torch
ISBN: 0-06-101459-1
On May 23rd, 1939, the newly built US fleet submarine USS Squalus was carrying out diving trials off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when something went drastically wrong. When Squalus submerged that morning, the "main induction valve" which admitted air for the diesel engines either didn't close or reopened after closing. As a result, the submarine's aft compartments flooded in a couple of minutes, sending her and her crew to the bottom in 240 feet of water. Rescues of crewmen from submarines sunk at any depth were almost unheard of; a rescue from a sub sunk at 240 feet was considered impossible. Nine days after Squalus sank, the British submarine Thetis sank in much shallower water -- but only four of her 100-man crew escaped. However, thirty-three of Squalus's fifty-nine crewmen lived to see daylight again, thanks entirely to the inventions of Lt. Commander Charles Bowers "Swede" Momsen, a maverick who had singlehandedly wrought a revolution in Navy diving and rescue technology and techniques. THE TERRIBLE HOURS is the story of the rescue of the Squalus survivors and of the submarine's salvaging, but
mainly it's the story of Swede Momsen.
