Amply illustrated book traces evolution of the sailing ship over the course of 6,000 years — from vessels of ancient Egypt to full-rigged clipper ships of the 19th century. 20 halftones and 134 figures.

With 300 stunning photographs, this pictorial history of tramp trade ships illustrates the evolution of these charming, itinerant merchant vessels. The tramp ship was the taxi of the seas. With no regular schedules, it voyaged anywhere and everywhere, picking up and dropping off cargoes, mainly bulk cargoes such as coal, grain, timber, china clay and oil. Older and slower vessels tended to find their way into this trade, hence the tag 'tramp'—but new tramps were also built for the purpose. In this beautiful volume featuring 300 photographs, Roy Fenton illustrates the Tramp Ship’s evolution over the course of more than 100 years, from the 1860s, when the steam tramp developed from the screw collier, until it was largely replaced by the specialist bulk carrier in the 1980s. Fenton offers fascinating background information on the design and building of tramps. He describes the machinery, from simple triple-expansion turbines to diesel engines. Their operation and management and the life of the officers and crews are also covered. This illustrated history journeys through the last years of the 19th century, the two world wars, and the postwar years. Photo captions provide each ship’s dimensions, owners, and builder. Each ship’s career is outlined with notes on trades and how they changed over a ship's lifetime.

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich houses the largest collection of scale ship models in the world. Many of the models are official, contemporary artifacts made by the craftsmen of the Royal Navy or the shipbuilders themselves, 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. Now available in paperback, this book tells the story of the evolution of the cruising ship under sail. It includes a large number of model photos all in full-color as well as close-up and detail views. These are captioned in depth, but many are also annotated to focus attention on interesting or unusual features. Although pictorial in emphasis, The Sailing Frigate weaves the pictures into an authoritative text, producing an unusual and attractive form of technical history. While the series will be of particular interest to ship modelers, all those with an interest in ship design and development will be attracted to the in-depth analysis of these beautifully presented books.

U-BOATS provides a fascinating and comprehensive chronicle of the development, activities, and fate of known U-boats. Operating mainly in the North Atlantic, they also fought campaigns along the east coast of the United States and in the Mediterranean, the Arctic, the Black Sea, the South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. You'll discover the tactics, technology, and weapons these vessels used to prey upon Allied warships and unarmed merchantmen alike, how they fought together in wolf packs and alone, how the crews lived beneath the waves, and how they died.

"For a brief period of forty years, the flying boat and its smaller counterpart, the float plane, were a familiar part of the flying scene."--Inside jacket.