Ted Drover was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland in 1907. He had polio as a child which left him with one leg shorter than the other and gave him a distinctive walk but did not prevent him from living an … Continue reading →
Paul Simpson has written another book about ships, life and voyages in the great days of sail. (The last was Around Cape Horn Once More, previously reviewed). This time he has told the story of the clipper Neptune’s Car, built … Continue reading →
Canada’s former national flag, the Canadian Red Ensign, evolved over the years as the nation grew. In this video, based on a talk he gave several times in 2016-2017, Charles D. Maginley outlines the history of the former national flag … Continue reading →
In the 1920s and 30s quite a large number of retiring shipmasters who had started their careers in sail were writing their memoirs, while authors like Basil Lubbock, conscious that the days of commercial sail were effectively over, published popular … Continue reading →
The book tells two stories. One is about undersea explorer Barry Clifford’s expeditions to Ile Sante-Marie off the eastern coast of Madagascar searching for the remains of Captain William Kidd’s ship, the Adventure Galley (Clifford was backed by TV’s Discovery … Continue reading →
Nicolai Rezanov was a minor Russian aristocrat in the time of Catherine the Great and the Tsars Paul and Alexander I. (He was born in 1764). Like others of his class, he competed for honours and preferment at the court … Continue reading →
Since the early years of the seventeenth century, figureheads have been a nearly universal feature of all except the smallest sailing warships and merchant ships. That includes ships built of iron and steel: any Tall Ship built today can be … Continue reading →
It would seem that a great many books on the age of fighting sail have been published during the last two decades. Lavery, Winfield and others may be thought to have covered the subject, but now we have this large … Continue reading →
John Ward and Kenneth Shoesmith were marine artists who lived nearly a century apart and who illustrated very different types of ship, yet they had much in common. Both came from comparatively humble origins, both were successful and both died … Continue reading →
In the last two decades, the British Navy has become quite a growth industry for academics, researchers, military analysts, ship enthusiasts and writers of stirring salt-water fiction. The Royal Navy may nowadays be in the second class as far as … Continue reading →
