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At first, no one but the lookout recognized the sound. Passengers described it as the impact of a heavy wave, a scraping noise, or the tearing of a long calico strip. In fact, it was the sound of the world’s most famous ocean liner striking an iceberg, and it served as the death knell for 1,500 souls. In the next two hours and forty minutes, the maiden voyage of the Titanic became one of history’s worst maritime accidents. As the ship’s deck slipped closer to the icy waterline, women pleaded with their husbands to join them on lifeboats. Men changed into their evening clothes to meet death with dignity. And in steerage, hundreds fought bitterly against certain death. At 2:15 a.m. the ship’s band played “Autumn.” Five minutes later, the Titanic was gone. Based on interviews with sixty-three survivors, Lord’s moment-by-moment account is among the finest books written about one of the twentieth century’s bleakest nights.
September 1875. With nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, the side-wheel steamer SS Central America encountered a violent storm and sank two hundred miles off the Carolina coast. More than four hundred lives and twenty-one tons of gold were lost. It was a tragedy lost in legend for more than a century—until a brilliant young engineer named Tommy Thompson set out to find the wreck.
Driven by scientific curiosity and resentful of the term “treasure hunt,” Thompson searched the deep-ocean floor using historical accounts, cutting-edge sonar technology, and an underwater robot of his own design. Navigating greedy investors, impatient crewmembers, and a competing salvage team, Thompson finally located the wreck in 1989 and sailed into Norfolk with her recovered treasure: gold coins, bars, nuggets, and dust, plus steamer trunks filled with period clothes, newspapers, books, and journals.
A great American adventure story, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea is also a fascinating account of the science, technology, and engineering that opened Earth’s final frontier, providing “white-knuckle reading, as exciting as anything . . . in The Perfect Storm” (Los Angeles Times Book Review).
“A complex, bittersweet history of two centuries of American entrepreneurship, linked by the mad quest for gold.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A ripping true tale of danger and discovery at sea.” —The Washington Post
“What a yarn! . . . If you sign on for the cruise, go in knowing that you’re going to miss meals and a lot of sleep.” —Newsweek
The Titanic has often been called "An exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian era,” but until now, her story has not been presented as such. In Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, historian Hugh Brewster seamlessly interweaves personal narratives of the lost liner’s most fascinating people with a haunting account of the fateful maiden crossing.
Employing scrupulous research and featuring 100 rarely seen photographs, he accurately depicts the ship’s brief life and tragic denouement and presents compelling, memorable portraits of her most notable passengers: millionaires John Jacob Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim; President Taft's closest aide, Major Archibald Butt; writer Helen Churchill Candee; the artist Frank Millet; movie actress Dorothy Gibson; the celebrated couturiere Lady Duff Gordon; aristocrat Noelle, the Countess of Rothes; and a host of other travelers. Through them, we gain insight into the arts, politics, culture, and sexual mores of a world both distant and near to our own. And with them, we gather on the Titanic’s sloping deck on that cold, starlit night and observe their all-too-human reactions as the disaster unfolds. More than ever, we ask ourselves, “What would we have done?”
In just two hours and forty minutes, 1,500 souls were lost at sea when the RMS Titanic succumbed to the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Based on interviews with sixty-three survivors, A Night to Remember tells the story of that fateful night, offering a meticulous and engrossing look at one of the twentieth century’s most infamous disasters. In The Night Lives On, Lord revisits the unsinkable ship, diving into the multitude of theories—both factual and fanciful—about the Titanic’s last hours. Was the ship really christened before setting sail on its maiden voyage? How did its wireless operators fail so badly, and why did the nearby Californian, just ten miles away when the Titanic struck the iceberg, not come to the rescue? Together for the first time, Lord’s classic bestseller A Night to Remember and his subsequent study The Night Lives On offer remarkable insight into the maritime catastrophe that continues to fascinate and horrify a full century later.
Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember was a landmark work that recounted the harrowing events of April 14, 1912, when the British ocean liner RMS Titanic went down in the North Atlantic Ocean, a book that inspired a classic movie of the same name. In The Night Lives On, Lord takes the exploration further, revealing information about the ship’s last hours that emerged in the decades that followed, and separating myths from facts.
Was the ship really christened before setting sail on its maiden voyage? What song did the band play as water spilled over the bow? How did the ship’s wireless operators fail so badly, and why did the nearby Californian, just ten miles away when the Titanic struck the iceberg, not come to the rescue? Lord answers these questions and more, in a gripping investigation of the night when approximately 1,500 victims were lost to the sea.
On ship-tracking websites, the waters are black with dots. Each dot is a ship; each ship is laden with boxes; each box is laden with goods. In postindustrial economies, we no longer produce but buy. We buy, so we must ship. Without shipping there would be no clothes, food, paper, or fuel. Without all those dots, the world would not work.
Freight shipping has been no less revolutionary than the printing press or the Internet, yet it is all but invisible. Away from public scrutiny, shipping revels in suspect practices, dubious operators, and a shady system of "flags of convenience." Infesting our waters, poisoning our air, and a prime culprit of acoustic pollution, shipping is environmentally indefensible. And then there are the pirates.
Rose George, acclaimed chronicler of what we would rather ignore, sails from Rotterdam to Suez to Singapore on ships the length of football fields and the height of Niagara Falls; she patrols the Indian Ocean with an anti-piracy task force; she joins seafaring chaplains, and investigates the harm that ships inflict on endangered whales.
Sharply informative and entertaining, Ninety Percent of Everything reveals the workings and perils of an unseen world that holds the key to our economy, our environment, and our very civilization.
“Unsinkable” provides a fresh look at the Titanic's incredible story. Following the great ship from her conception to her fateful collision to the ambitious attempts to salvage her right up to the present day, Daniel Allen Butler draws on thirty years of research to explore the tragedy and its aftermath in remarkable depth and detail. The result is a must-read for anyone interested in the Titanic.
Using dozens of interview and audiotapes that recorded every word exchanged between Quirk and the Coast Guard, Tougias has written a devastating, true account of bravery and death at sea, in Ten Hours Until Dawn.
Drawing on the diaries of those who were rescued and those who perished, Jennifer Niven re-creates with astonishing accuracy the ill-fated journey and the crews desperate attempts to find a way home.
A few minutes before midnight on April 14, 1912, the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic, on her maiden voyage to New York, struck an iceberg. Less than three hours later she lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. While the world has remained fascinated by the tragedy, the most amazing drama of those fateful hours was not played out aboard the doomed liner. It took place on the decks of two other ships, one fifty-eight miles distant from the sinking Titanic, the other barely ten miles away. The masters of the steamships Carpathia and Californian, Captain Arthur Rostron and Captain Stanley Lord, were informed within minutes of each other that their vessels had picked up the distress signals of a sinking ship. Their actions in the hours and days that followed would become the stuff of legend, as one would choose to take his ship into dangerous waters to answer the call for help, while the other would decide that the hazard to himself and his command was too great to risk responding.
After years of research, Daniel Allen Butler now tells this incredible story, moving from ship to ship on the icy waters of the North Atlantic—in real-time—to recount how hundreds of people could have been rescued, but in the end only a few outside of the meager lifeboats were saved. He then looks alike at the U.S. Senate Investigation in Washington, and ultimately the British Board of Trade Inquiry in London, where the actions of each captain are probed, questioned, and judged, until the truth of what actually happened aboard the Titanic, the Carpathia and the Californian is revealed.
Daniel Allen Butler, a maritime and military historian, is the bestselling author of “Unsinkable”: The Full Story of RMS Titanic, Distant Victory: The Battle of Jutland and the Allied Triumph in the First World War, and The First Jihad: The Battle for Khartoum and the Dawn of Militant Islam. He is an internationally recognized authority on maritime subjects and a popular guest-speaker for several cruise lines. Butler lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Since the 1960s, the underwater access afforded by SCUBA gear has allowed divers, historians, treasure hunters, and archaeologists to discover and explore many of the American Civil War-related shipwrecks. In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, Gaines scoured countless sources -- from government and official records to sports diver and treasure-hunting magazines -- and cross-indexes his compilation by each vessel's various names and nicknames throughout its career.
An essential reference work for Civil War scholars and buffs, archaeologists, divers, and aficionados of naval history, Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks revives and preserves for posterity the little-known stories of these intriguing historical artifacts.
Lusitania: She was a ship of dreams, carrying millionaires and aristocrats, actresses and impresarios, writers and suffragettes – a microcosm of the last years of the waning Edwardian Era and the coming influences of the Twentieth Century. When she left New York on her final voyage, she sailed from the New World to the Old; yet an encounter with the machinery of the New World, in the form of a primitive German U-Boat, sent her – and her gilded passengers – to their tragic deaths and opened up a new era of indiscriminate warfare.
A hundred years after her sinking, Lusitania remains an evocative ship of mystery. Was she carrying munitions that exploded? Did Winston Churchill engineer a conspiracy that doomed the liner? Lost amid these tangled skeins is the romantic, vibrant, and finally heartrending tale of the passengers who sailed aboard her. Lives, relationships, and marriages ended in the icy waters off the Irish Sea; those who survived were left haunted and plagued with guilt. Now, authors Greg King and Penny Wilson resurrect this lost, glittering world to show the golden age of travel and illuminate the most prominent of Lusitania's passengers. Rarely was an era so glamorous; rarely was a ship so magnificent; and rarely was the human element of tragedy so quickly lost to diplomatic maneuvers and militaristic threats.
One hundred fifty miles away, in Sitka, Alaska, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off from America's most remote Coast Guard base in the hopes of tracking down an anonymous Mayday signal. A fisherman's worst nightmare has become a Coast Guard crew's desperate mission. As the crew of the La Conte begin to die one by one, those sworn to watch over them risk everything to pull off the rescue of the century.
Spike Walker's memoir of his years as a deckhand in Alaska, Working on the Edge, was hailed by James A. Michner as "masterful . . . will become the definitive account of this perilous trade, an addition to the literature of the sea." In Coming Back Alive, Walker has crafted his most devastating book to date. Meticulously researched through hundreds of hours of taped interviews with the survivors, this is the true account of the La Conte's final voyage and the relationship between Alaskan fishermen and the search and rescue crews who risk their lives to save them.
In this excellent handbook on basic shipboard skills, marine expert Hervey Garrett Smith offers boating and yachting enthusiasts a complete course in rigging, working, and maintaining a ship. More than 100 illustrations help the reader grasp the fundamentals and fine points of handling a ship while the author describes in detail a sailor's tools, basic knots, and useful hitches as well as the arts of splicing, handsewing, and canvas work.
Other topics equally important to safe, economical, and efficient boat maintenance and management include belaying, coiling, and stowing; towing procedures; how to make a chafing gear; and much more. Easy-to-follow instructions for fashioning decorative knots, ornamental coverings, and nettings, and even how to make a proper bucket round out this engaging and informative guide.
Packed with useful "hands-on" information conveyed in a chatty, humorous style, The Arts of the Sailor is the perfect book to keep aboard ship for study and for ready reference when the need arises. It also makes delightful reading for armchair sailors and the legions of landlubbers with an interest in the sea.
Starting with a precise explanation of the principles of rigging, the text proceeds to a well-defined account of a ship's operation through the effect of the wind on its sails. Tacking, use of a compass, the art of swinging a ship at single anchor, casting, and numerous other aspects of seamanship receive close attention and clear definitions. Detailed drawings accompany the ample directions for splicing ropes, making sails, and other practical measures; indeed, every other page of this book features clear, well-drawn illustrations of the procedure under discussion and its execution.
This rare volume, an authentic look at the maritime world of the 19th century, belongs in the library of every ship fancier, model builder, and naval historian.
People have an endless fascination with the Titanic, yet much of what they know today is a mixture of fact and fiction. In one hundred and one brief and engaging chapters, Tim Maltin, one of the foremost experts on the Titanic, reveals the truth behind the most common beliefs about the ship and the night it sank. From physics to photographs, lawsuits to love stories, Maltin doesn't miss one tidbit surrounding its history. Heavily researched and filled with detailed descriptions, quotes from survivors, and excerpts from the official inquiries, this book is guaranteed to make readers rethink everything they thought they knew about the legendary ship and its tragic fate.
With numerous photographs and engaging stories, Deckhand offers an insider's view of both the mundane and the intriguing duties performed by deckhands on these gritty cargo vessels. Boisterous port saloons, monster ice jams, near drownings, and the daily drudgery of soogeying---cleaning dirt and grime off the ships---are just a few of the experiences Mickey Haydamacker had as a young deckhand working on freighters of the Great Lakes in the early 1960s. Haydamacker sailed five Interlake Steamship Company boats, from the modern Elton Hoyt 2nd to the ancient coal-powered Colonel James Pickands with its backbreaking tarp-covered hatches.
Deckhand will appeal to shipping buffs and to anyone interested in Great Lakes shipping and maritime history as it chronicles the adventures of living on the lakes from the seldom-seen view of a deckhand.
Mickey Haydamacker spent his youth as a deckhand sailing on the freighters of the Great Lakes. During the 1962 and '63 seasons Nelson sailed five different Interlake Steamship Company ore boats. He later went on to become an arson expert with the Michigan State Police, retiring with the rank of Detective Sergeant.
Alan D. Millar, to whom Haydamacker related his tale of deckhanding, spent his career as a gift store owner and often wrote copy for local newspaper, TV, and radio.
Merchant ships faced danger from submarines, mines, armed raiders, and destroyers, aircraft (kamikaze), and the element. About 8,300 mariners were killed at sea, 12.00 wounded of whom at least, 1, 100 died from their wounds, and 663 men and women were taken prisoner.
Some were blown to death, some incinerated, some drowned, some froze and some starved. Many died in prison camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported to other camps. 31 ships vanished without a trace to a watery grave. ( Total killed estimated 9,300)
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Concise, authoritative, and easy to follow, this unique guide shows modern shipwrights how to build three ancient Egyptian boat models following the same expert techniques used by craftsmen thousands of years ago. A beginner's skill level is all that's needed to expertly construct the royal sailing ships of King Khufu (ruled ca. 2551–2528 B.C.), Queen Hatshepsut (ruled ca. 1479–1458 B.C.) and the great Ramses II (ruled ca. 1279–1213 B.C.). Learn how to select the proper wood and gather the appropriate tools and materials. Follow simple guidelines for every aspect of construction, from hull to sails to rowing oars—even building the display stand. Replicate the paints and colors used for the original Egyptian models. And discover ancient free-hand painting techniques, including how to create authentic hieroglyphic symbols to decorate your project. A profusion of detailed patterns and diagrams—plus photographs of each finished model—accompany the text, guiding crafters step-by-step to shipbuilding success.
Doug Von Allmen, a self-made man who grew up in a landlocked state dreaming of the ocean, was poised to build a 187-foot yacht that would cost $40 million. Lady Linda would not be among the very largest of the burgeoning fleet of oceangoing palaces, but Von Allmen vowed that it would be the best one ever made in the United States. Nothing would be ordinary. The interior walls would be made from rare species of burl wood, the floors paved with onyx and exotic types of marble, the furniture custom made, and the art specially commissioned.
But the 2008 economic crisis changed everything. Von Allmen’s lifestyle suddenly became unaffordable. Then it got worse: desperate to reverse his losses, he fell for an audacious Ponzi scheme. Would Von Allmen be able to complete Lady Linda? Would the shipyard and its one thousand employees survive the financial meltdown?
The divide between the very rich and everyone else had never been greater, yet the livelihoods of the workers, some of them illegal immigrants, and the yacht owners were inextricably intertwined. In a sweeping, high-stakes narrative, the critically acclaimed author of The Proving Ground and Hooked weaves Von Allmen’s story together with those of the men and women who are building his yacht. As the pursuit of opulence collides with the reality of economic decline, everyone involved in the massive project is forced to rethink the meaning of the American Dream.
In a new edition that both commemorates the one hundredth anniversary of the disaster and elaborates, in a revised afterword, on the ship's continued impact on the public imagination (evidenced by the Titanic mania evoked by James Cameron's 1997 film), Steven Biel explores the Titanic in all its complexity and contradictions.
Today, the magnificent Pacific coastline of Vancouver Island draws hikers, surfers and storm-watchers to marvel at its natural splendour. But the ghosts of the Valencia, King David, Janet Cowan, Pacific, Soquel and dozens of other lost ships still haunt the rugged shores of the Graveyard of the Pacific. Anthony Dalton tells the incredible stories of many of these ships and their courageous crews, who often discovered that their nightmares had only begun once they made it ashore. These true tales of disaster and daring rescues are a fascinating adventure into British Columbia maritime history.
With over 200 gorgeous paintings and illustrations, and thrilling descriptions of the adventures and races on the water, this beautiful book brings the era vividly to life.
Chapters include:
The origins of the clippers - from the gold rush to the tea trade
A hell ship voyage with 'Bully' Waterman, one of the most successful and notorious captains of the era
Marco Polo, the fastest ship in the world - her rise to prominence and subsequent decline
Mary Patten's battle with Cape Horn - a lady captain takes charge in a very male world
Mutiny aboard the 'wild boat of the Atlantic'
The great China tea race of 1866 - an amazingly close race across the world, only decided in the final few miles
The Sir Lancelot defies the odds - her eccentric captains and rivalry with the legendary Thermopylae
The Cutty Sark's longest voyage
First-hand accounts, newspaper reports and log entries add fascinating eyewitness detail, whilst the stunning images show how the designs of these thoroughbreds developed over the years.
A wonderful read and worthy celebration of these racehorses of the sea.
His extensive historical research takes us back to the time of European contact, through the fate of the luckless Griffon and the achievements of the French in the era of sail. From the 1760s through to 1815, Bamford chronicles the glory years of the brigs, the schooners, the snows and the warships that dominated the lakes during the war years, with a particular emphasis on the War of 1812 and the race for naval domination of the Great Lakes.
Much deserving attention is given to the shipbuilders and to the challenges of constructing these vessels in the wilderness of the colonies, all supported by carefully researched detail. Bamford also documents the critical role played by sailing vessels in the settlement process as newly arrived immigrants struggled to establish a home in a new land.
The commercial role of sail on the Great Lakes is captured through the refinements to the schooners, the place of ships in the fur trade, the early days of fishing the lakes as an industry, the role of the timber droghers, the stone hookers and the first ore carriers of the first part of the 20th century. Never before has the place of sailing vessels in the early history of Canadas Great Lakes been so inclusive, and made so accessible to the general reader.
Richly illustrated with archival visuals and photographs of significant works of art, and supported by a full index and extensive end matter, Freshwater Heritage is a must for both the armchair historian and those who love to sail.
Although mastery of the art of rigging is no longer required on board today's ships, legions of serious model ship builders who wish to rig their ships correctly need to learn the art in miniature. This book is widely considered the best manual ever produced on rigging the sailing ship. It is based on the extensively revised and updated 1848 edition prepared by Captain George Biddlecombe, a Master in the Royal Navy and former merchant seaman. The book is divided into five parts:
The First Part contains an alphabetical explanation of terms and phrases used in rigging. The Second Part consists of directions for the performance of operations incidental to rigging and preparing it on shore, with a table of the comparative strength of chain and rope. The Third Part contains the progressive method of rigging ships. The Fourth Part contains a description of reeving the running rigging and bending the sails in addition to the rigging of brigs, yachts, and small vessels. The Fifth Part comprises tables of the quantities and dimensions of the standing and running rigging of ships, brigs, fore-and-aft schooners, and cutters, with the species, size, and number of blocks, hearts, dead-eyes, etc.
Serious modelists, naval historians, armchair skippers — any sailing buff — will want to own a copy of The Art of Rigging. Complete and wonderfully clear, it is now available in its first inexpensive paperback edition. It belongs in every maritime library.
The first edition of The Pirates Own Book was published in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1837, and during the next 25 years it was followed by at least eight other editions. Today it is a rarity among collectors. Now available once again in this inexpensive edition, it will thrill lovers of drama on the high seas or any reader interested in the true-life adventures of the ruthless men and women who sailed under the black flag so long ago.
You'll also find photographs and prints of actual whaling implements (blubber forks, harpoons, lances, cutting spades, etc.), whaling guns, boating implements, and other tools and equipment of the whalers of yesteryear. Additional pictorial highlights include a 1621 engraving of Mass being celebrated on the back of a whale; a wood engraving of the ship "Maria" of New Bedford built in 1782 (oldest whaler in the U.S. in 1853); a Currier and Ives lithograph of a sperm whale, "In A Flurry;" and a revealing series of prints documenting the whaler "Charles W. Morgan" of New Bedford.
Most of the prints have been culled from private sources, especially the celebrated Macpherson and Forbes collections, and are generally inaccessible. They have been painstakingly reproduced here, making them widely available to anyone interested in this fascinating chapter of maritime history. George Francis Dow, one of this century's foremost authorities on sailing vessels, selected the illustrations and contributed an expert, well-researched text outlining the history of whaling over three centuries, with special attention to the whaling industry of colonial New England.
Many of these superstitions have refused to go away and quite a few have entered the general public consciousness. Some are amusing in their own right, others have fascinating origins, whilst for many there are bizarre anecdotal incidents which would appear to lend credence to these arcane beliefs.
Illustrated with quirky cartoons, this book explores nautical superstitions from all over the world in an informative yet entertaining way.
Includes superstitions about: Boatbuilding, naming and launching; Lucky and unlucky dates to sail; People, things and animals not to let on board; Signs and portents at sea; Words not to say (and their alternatives); Predicting the weather; Fishing; and much, much more!
Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid’s story were true.
Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman’s last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the epic tales suggest it could be.
Joining scientists experimenting with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid’s steps on land and in the sagas, The Far Traveler reconstructs a life that spanned—and expanded—the bounds of the then-known world. It also sheds new light on the society that gave rise to a woman even more extraordinary than legend has painted her, and illuminates the reasons for its collapse.
The book focuses on the observation-class ROV and underwater uses for industrial, recreational, commercial, and scientific studies. It provides information about marine robotics and navigation tools used to obtain mission results and data faster and more efficiently. This manual also covers two common denominators: the technology and its application. It introduces the basic technologies needed and their relationship to specific requirements; and it helps identify the equipment essential for a cost-effective and efficient operation.
This user guide can be invaluable in marine research and surveying, crime investigations, harbor security, military and coast guarding, commercial boating, diving and fishing, nuclear energy and hydroelectric inspection, and ROV courses in marine and petroleum engineering.
* The first book to focus on observation class ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) underwater deployment in real conditions for industrial, commercial, scientific and recreational tasks
* A complete user guide to ROV operation with basic information on underwater robotics and navigation equipment to obtain mission results quickly and efficiently
* Ideal for anyone involved with ROVs complete with self-learning questions and answers
Giving exciting escapes from death and acts or heroism not equalled in ancient or modern times, told by the survivors. Including history of icebergs, the terror of the seas; wireless telegraphy and modern shipbuilding.
Illustrated throughout with photographs and drawings made expressly for this book ...”
'No other historian has examined the subject in anything like the detail found here. The result is an outstanding example of narrative history' Barry Unsworth, Sunday Telegraph
The new edition provides worked examples and test exam questions, corresponding to current Merchant Navy Qualifications. Other revisions will include new material on emerging technology areas such as image intensifiers (photoelectric effect, secondary emission), thermal imaging cameras, radar, increased maritime use of LEDs, various semiconductor physics devices including the laser, as well as discussions of binary or digital theory.