This book traces the evolution and associated traditions of the wooden ship, through her multiple forms and styles from her prehistoric beginnings to her demise shortly after the First World War. Details are provided on regional variations including the small three-masted schooner (Wales), the large three-masted schooner (Finland), the three-masted barque (Canada), and the four-master schooner (United States).

The Mariner's Mirror, the journal of The Society for Nautical Research, first appeared in 1991. By extracting the best of the material & adding notes Greenhill has created a fascinating narrative which describes the development of the sailing ship.

“A wonderful book detailing the construction of the Royal Navy’s sailing warships” from the maritime historian and author of Nelson’s Navy (Pirates and Privateers). The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich houses the largest collection of scale ship models in the world, many of which are official, contemporary artifacts made by the craftsmen of the navy or the shipbuilders themselves, and ranging from the mid-seventeenth century to the present day. As such they represent a three-dimensional archive of unique importance and authority. Treated as historical evidence, they offer more detail than even the best plans, and demonstrate exactly what the ships looked like in a way that even the finest marine painter could not achieve. This book takes a selection of the best models to both describe and demonstrate the development of warship construction in all its complexity from the beginning of the 18th century to the end of wooden shipbuilding. For this purpose, it reproduces a large number of model photos, all in full color, and including many close-up and detail views. These are captioned in depth, but many are also annotated to focus attention on interesting or unusual features, which can be shown far more clearly than described. Although pictorial in emphasis, the book weaves the pictures into an authoritative text, producing an unusual and attractive form of technical history. “This book includes plentiful visual representations of actual ships in model form and the accompanying graphics make for wonderful reading . . . I cannot express enough how enjoyable this book is to read.”—Spotter Up “A high-quality book which is recommended to all ship historians and modellers.”—Military Modelling

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Covers the art of wooden shipbuilding from the canoe to the pleasure craft of modern times.