Ship History

After Benson, O'Malley, and I returned from our trip to the Granada Relocation Center, Dad started working on the solar-powered history machine to make it better than ever. It took us awhile to decide where our next adventure would take us, but finally my brothers and I settled on exploring some family history from way back in the 1600s!

On the morning of November 9, 1942, the Dunedin Star, a 13,000-ton refrigerated cargo ship, was tugged off her moorings, and nudged into the mouth of the Mersey River, that iconic entranceway to Liverpool Harbor, and the British gateway to the outside world. On her port side, Fort Perch hung ghostly and silent in the dawn light, and the old Leashow Lighthouse blinked forlornly on the North Wirral headland. As she passed the harbor walls and entered open water, the harbor pilot shook the captain's hand and wished him Godspeed,.

America in 1775 was on the verge of revolution - or, more likely, disastrous defeat. After the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, England's King George sent hundreds of ships westward to bottle up American harbors and prey on American shipping. Colonists had no force to defend their coastline and waterways until John Adams of Massachusetts proposed a bold solution: The Continental Congress should raise a navy. Meticulously researched and masterfully told, Give Me a Fast Ship is the definitive history of the American Navy during the Revolutionary War.

Whether you're an avid paranormal enthusiast or a curious listener seeking a thrilling adventure, Haunted Ships & Boats promises to captivate, entertain, and inspire your imagination. Each chapter offers a captivating exploration of a unique maritime haunting, complete with historical context, spine-tingling eyewitness accounts, and the eerie legends that persist to this day.

Despite Russia's imposing image in the world, less apparent weaknesses within the tsarist government threatened the country's stability. Several events in the early 20th century led to an eroding loyalty among Russian military forces, and Potemkin was the first modern ship to reveal it, an act that would bring it fame and make it the subject of some of the most well-known works of film and literature in Russian history.

By the early decades of the 20th century, the fur trade had tapered off some from its heyday in the 19th century, but it still proved profitable enough for hunters to live for months at a time in remote regions of Alaska. Their only contact with the outside world consisted of the company ships that came to buy their furs and bring them supplies. One of these vessels was the steamer Baychimo, a Hudson's Bay Company ship that plied the treacherous waters off Alaska, Arctic Canada, and Siberia for many years.

People love mysteries, which is a good thing since history is so replete with them. This is especially true among seafaring people, and of all the mysteries of the deep, few rise to the level of the Mary Celeste. In many ways, it is a story more suited for an episode of The X-Files than it is for any history book. There is the unlucky ship that began her sailing career under a cloud of bad fortune and accident.

This full account of USS Boise’s war not only gives us an insight into how one ship navigated a global conflict, but also an insight into the experiences of the men who served on her and a new perspective on the naval campaigns of the war.

The most horrific struggle of the American Revolution occurred just 100 yards off New York, where more men died aboard a rotting prison ship than were lost to combat during the entirety of the war. Moored off the coast of Brooklyn until the end of the war, the derelict ship, the HMS Jersey, was a living hell for thousands of Americans either captured by the British or accused of disloyalty. Crammed below deck - a shocking one thousand at a time - without light or fresh air, the prisoners were scarcely fed food and water.

This book tells the tale of the fabled schooner, Rouse Simmons, the most famous Christmas story to emerge from the Great Lakes. This ship, loaded with Christmas trees for Chicago, sailed into the year's worst storm and disappeared in Lake Michigan on November 23, 1912, taking with it Captain Herman Schuenemann and about 15 others who were on board.

Join veteran submariner and decorated veteran of the submarine service Andrew Karam and the crew of the USS Plunger (SSN 595) as it goes up against the best of the Soviet Navy on an extended "special operation" in the waning days of the Cold War and find out what life at sea is really like.

This is the story of how, in Titanic's loss, 1500 souls were sacrificed to the "settled science" and "scientific consensus" of marine engineering. It is also the story of how the US and British loss enquiries were shaped by party politics, corrupted by corrupt politicians and the Marconi Scandal, tainted by the politics of Irish Home Rule, and - finally - salvaged by Oliver Wendell Holmes and the US Supreme Court, and by Lord Mersey's judgement in the Board of Trade Enquiry and the subsequent International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea.

The epic history of Winyah Bay's wooden boats stretches back to 1526, when Spanish explorers sailed through the inlet and were greeted by Native Americans in dugout canoes. The English settled Georgetown and the bay's shores in 1736 to begin a legacy of rice and indigo plantations, and Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette first landed on American soil at Winyah Bay in 1777.

In July 1882, the steamboat Red Cloud hit a snag near Fort Peck, Montana, and settled into the bed of the Missouri River with a full cargo. The Red Cloud was a symbol-and a source-of the trading company's success. Bought for $25,000 in 1877, it was one of three boats that I. G. Baker employed on the Missouri. A stern-wheeled, wooden-hulled packet boat, the Red Cloud carried both cargo and passengers on a floating palace.

Avast! Are ye' ready to sail the high seas with some of the world's most feared pirates? These accounts will do more than shiver your timbers. Come aboard to witness the ruthless methods of history's most petrifying pirates.

When Oxford archeologist Mensun Bound, dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the Deep" by the Discovery Channel, teamed up with a financier to salvage a sunken trove of 15th-century porcelain, it seemed a dream enterprise. The stakes were high: the Hoi An wreck lay hundreds of feet down in a typhoon-prone stretch of water off the coast of Vietnam known as the Dragon Sea.

In 2001, journalist Jessica DuLong ditched her dot-com desk job for the diesel engines of a rusty antique fireboat, the John J. Harvey, and the storied waters of the Hudson. My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson tells the story of this mechanic's daughter and Stanford graduate who had left her blue-collar upbringing behind until the fireboat drew her back, offering a chance to become an engineer and a taste of home she hadn't realized she was missing.

Rod Brown and Julius Lester bring history to life in this profoundly moving exploration of the slave experience. From the Middle Passage to the auction block, from the whipping post to the fight for freedom, this audiobook presents not just historical facts, but the raw emotions of the people who lived them. Inspired by Rod Brown's vivid paintings, Julius Lester has written a story that places each of us squarely inside the skin of both slave and slave owner. It will capture the heart of every listener, black or white, young or old.

Bill Paterson narrates Captain Robin L. Hutchison’s fascinating and humorous insider’s take about life onboard some of Scotland's most iconic ships including the Waverley, Queen Mary II, Caledonia, Jupiter, and Hebridean Princess. Bill brings his natural warmth and authenticity to the story of one of the Clyde's longest-serving captains.

On November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for slavery in America. The captain believed his ship was off course, and he feared there was not enough drinking water to last until landfall. This book is the first to examine in detail the deplorable killings on the Zong, the lawsuit that ensued, how the murder of 132 slaves affected debates about slavery, and the way we remember the infamous Zong today.