A photographic record of early twentieth-century maritime history.

With wit and nostalgia--and through radiant photographs that evoke a vanished maritime world--a master storyteller looks back on a youthful adventure that taught him the ways of the sea and ships. 160 photos.

White-winged schooners once dominated commerce and culture on the Great Lakes, and songs relieved the hours on board, but that way of life and its music ended when steam-driven mechanical boats swept schooners from the inland seas. Recognizing in the late 1930s, almost too late, that this rich oral tradition was going to the grave along with the last generation of schoonermen, Ivan H. Walton undertook a quest to save the songs of the Great Lakes sailors. Racing time and its ravages, he searched out ancient mariners in lakefront hospitals, hangouts, and watering holes. Walton reconstructed songs from one of the most colorful periods in American history, discovering melodies and lyrics to more than a hundred songs. With its stories, lyrics, musical scores by folksinger/historian Lee Murdock, and accompanying CD, Windjammers ensures that sailing chanteys that have not been heard for over one hundred years can be heard again and again far into the future.

A blend of interviews, diary extracts and stories. All illustrated with 42 of Robert Carter's beautiful and detailed paintings. They are not just illustrations of ships. Each comes with its own description, revealing more about the days of sail. Includes photographs, line drawings and maps. The book reveals real life stories from the final 50 years in the life of the last commercial sailing ships which ended in 1959.