Ice Age to Mid-Eighth Century by Nick Collins World-wide maritime trade has been the essential driver of wealth-creation, economic progress and global human contact. Trade and exchange of ideas have been at the heart of economic, social, political, cultural and religious life and maritime international law. These claims are borne out by the history of maritime trade beginning in the...

Life Aboard the Battlecruiser Tiger 1914-16 by John R Muir This memoir is perhaps one of the most immediate and vivid recollections of life in a Royal Navy battlecruiser to come out of World War I. John Muir, a surgeon, was the senior medical officer aboard HMS Tiger from her commissioning in October 1914 until his departure in the autumn...

by Roger Branfill-Cook The ‘X’ stood for experimental, but it might equally have meant extraordinary, exotic or extravagant, as this giant submarine attracted superlatives - the world’s largest, most heavily armed, and deepest diving submersible of the day. X.1 was a controversial project conceived behind the backs of politicians and would remain an unwanted stepchild. This book explores the historical...

From the John Lambert Collection by Steve Dunn John Lambert was a renowned naval draughtsman, whose plans were highly valued for their accuracy and detail by modelmakers and enthusiasts. By the time of his death in 2016, he had produced over 850 sheets of drawings, many of which have never been published. These were acquired by Seaforth and this title...

A tale or two from a Sussex seafarer by Cliff Arkley The son of a Rye fisherman, Cliff Arkley joined the Merchant Navy at an early age and gradually progressed up the ranks until he held a master’s ticket and a nautical surveyor’s ticket, latterly gaining Fellowship of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers. After a few years working around the...

A Historical Miscellany Hardcover by Dr Ray Solly In this engaging book, Dr Solly examines the history of crude oil tankers from early days when this vital commodity was carried aboard ordinary sailing vessels, through the innovative designs that resulted in significant breakthroughs leading to early single-hulled VLCCs, and the later stronger hence safer double-hulled vessel. The professional reader will...

In the Cold War Era by Norman Friedman The Royal Navy’s greatest contribution to the Allied success in World War II was undoubtedly the defeat of the U-boat menace in the North Atlantic, a victory on which all other European campaigns depended. The underwater threat was the most serious naval challenge of the war, so it was not surprising that...

The Hunt for the World’s Most Notorious Pirate by Craig Cabell, Graham A Thomas & Allan Richards Edward Teach Blackbeard is one of the legends of the so-called golden age of piracy. There have been so many accounts of his short, bloody career that it is hard to see him and his times in a clear historical light. This new...

101 Questions & Answers about the Great Transatlantic Liner by David Ellery For 1930s Britain, the Queen Mary was a symbol of hope. Cunard had abandoned construction on what they had planned to be the grandest liner of all time (then known simply as Job 534) in the depths of the Depression. Her half-finished hull sat on the Clyde for...

by Richard M Jones When you think of a shipwreck, what image springs to mind? A tall sailing ship on the rocks, or perhaps the sinking Titanic surrounded by lifeboats? Historian Richard M Jones has put together 50 stories of lost ships throughout history that are among the most important, infamous and in some cases tragic ships in the whole...

The English Channel and Ocean Liner Specials: History, Development and Operation by MARTYN PRING In many ways this title featuring the evolution of cross-channel boat trains and the many dedicated services responsible for moving international passengers to and from trans-Atlantic steamers, is an extension of luxury railway travel. But that’s not the full story as it encapsulates more than 125...

Memoirs of a P&O Ship’s Telephonist by FREDA BASSINGALE In 1968, Freda Bassindale quit the Edinburgh City Police and boarded SS Iberia for a new job as a telephonist. For the next five years, she cruised the world with P&O, enjoying her life at sea and the exotic destinations she explored along the way. Fifty years later, the discovery of...

Queen of the Ocean by David F Hutchings Five years in the making, RMS Mauretania and her sister, the Lusitania, represented a new era in British shipbuilding. Ostensibly built to compete against record-breaking German behemoths, the Mauretania was not only one of the first major ships to be turbine-driven or have four propellers - but she was also the largest...

From the Eastern Front to the Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff by Klaus Willmann This is the true story of how one soldier experienced the horrors and bloodshed of World War II - and lived to tell the tale. Hans Fackler, like many boys his age, was conscripted into the Wehrmacht at the age of seventeen and sent to the...

Transporting Secret Agents Across the North Sea in WW2 by Stephen Wynn The Shetland Bus was not a bus, but the nickname of a special operations group that set up a route across the North Sea between Norway and the Shetland Islands, north-east of mainland Scotland. The first voyage was made by Norwegian sailors to help their compatriots in occupied...

Scott’s Antarctic Photographer and Pioneer Filmmaker by Anne Strathie Herbert Ponting (1870-1935) was young bank clerk when he bought an early Kodak compact camera. By the early 1900s, he was living in California, working as a professional photographer, known for stereoview and enlarged images of America, Japan and the Russo-Japanese war. In 1909, back in Britain, Ponting was recruited by...

Leith Shipyards, 1918-1939 by R O Neish Ron Neish takes us on a journey brought alive in his account of shipyard construction in a narrow but epic window of history – 1918-1939. Ron brings the long defunct shipyards back to life: the pride of a busy shipyard exudes. The myriad skills (many now lost to the UK) are revived on...

A Fishing Crew’s Fight for Justice after being Jailed for 104 Years by Mike Dunn & Nicky Green On 31 May 2010, eleven holdalls were discovered along the shore near Freshwater on the Isle of Wight; when opened they contained £53m worth of cocaine – the biggest haul ever found in UK waters. A local fishing crew was accused of...

The Baltic, 1945 by Claes-Göran Wetterholm Amid the turmoil of the dying days of the Second World War, a series of ships were sunk in the Baltic. These terrible disasters add up to be the greatest loss of life ever recorded at sea, but the stories of these ships have been lost from view. While everyone recognises the name Titanic,...

A History of Visual Communication at Seaby by David Craddock What Ship, Where Bound? takes its title from the familiar opening exchange of signals between passing ships, and celebrates the long history of visual communications at sea. It traces the visual language of signalling from the earliest naval banners or streamers used by the Byzantines in AD 900 through to...

Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives (Images of War) by Michael Green This classic Images of War book traces the key role played by destroyers of the United States Navy since the first order for 16 in 1898. Prior to the USA’s entry into the First World War a further 63 destroyers were commissioned and, due to the U-boat threat, 267...

The Story of the Disaster By Some of Those Who Were There by James W Bancroft To have sailed on ‘the voyage of the century’ aboard White Star Line’s RMS Titanic – described at the time as ‘a floating palace’ – was like being one of the first passengers to fly on Concorde. On 10 April 1912, people from all...

Ship of Legend by William H Miller The 1960s were, it was believed, the end of the era of transatlantic liners. Grand, graceful but aging luxury ships such as the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were surpassed and outmoded by the new age of jet aircraft. By 1963, airlines had secured over 95 percent of all transatlantic travellers. But looking...