Young Harry McGann is forced to flee Ireland for the unknown shores of America. On that voyage he meets Elizabeth Bartlett, who seems as far beyond his reach as the stars which guide him across the Atlantic. Through the years that follow, Harry finds himself involved in the formation of the American Navy. It is a world of intrigue, violence and untold dangers at sea. But always the memory of Elizabeth is there … and their paths are destined to cross again and again. ‘Old Glory’ is a tale of blistering naval battles and wild romance on the high seas. It is the first book in The McGann saga.

    The Wooden World provides the most complete history of a navy at any age, and is sure to be an indispensable volume for all fans of Patrick O'Brian, English history, and naval history.

    

    Why did the crew steam full speed ahead into dangerous waters despite six wireless warnings? How able was the doomed behemoths superb seaman Captain Smith? Why did the nearby ship Californian ignore Titanic's distress signals? How could such a disaster ever have occurred?Author Walter Lord's acclaimed classic A Night to Remember is considered the definitive written work on the Titanic tragedy. And now he returns to the scene of chaos and horror to explore—and answer—the untold mysteries behind the twentieth century's greatest catastrophe at sea.

    Since then, five seasons of experimental trials have been conducted on the ship under oar and sail, and the lessons learned have been supplemented by new archaeological discoveries and by historical, scientific and physiological research over the past fifteen years. For this second edition, the text has been recast and a number of substantive changes have been made. In addition, there is an entirely new chapter that describes the trials of Olympias in detail, reports the performance figures, and outlines the changes desirable in any second reconstruction. There are nineteen new illustrations, including eleven photographs of Olympias at sea demonstrating features of the design that could be represented only by drawings in the first edition.

    

    Longer than two football pitches, wider than a ten-lane highway, higher than a seven-story office block, the colossus is deep-laden with crude oil - enough, once refined, to keep a typical family car running for fifty thousand years, give or take a decade. Only an expert might suspect that the giant is sick. That years of cost-cutting and neglect have sapped her strength: that her rusting plates and defective mechanisms have turned her into a powder keg of terrifying potency.The US-owned Panoco oil terminal in the little Scottish port of Vaila appears similarly impressive. Well maintained, efficiently run; a shining example of oil industry technology. But again, looks can be deceiving. Only those who understand its workings know how many corners have been cut: how far the vital safety systems have been allowed to run down; how much of its emergency cover has been sacrificed in the pursuit of profit.Bring a powder keg to a potentially open fire: add a superannuated Italian captain, a chief officer promoted beyond his capabilities, a persistently inquisitive female reporter in love with the wrong man, a Panoco watch controller afflicted by diarrhoea, an idealistic group of teenagers out to press their cause, and the community of a remote Highland village largely compelled to remain tight-lipped by their dependency on the jobs the terminal provides … Minute by minute, incident by incident, Brian Callison traces the countdown to catastrophe; expounds, with cool and convincing clarity based on an actual event, the chain of trivial accidents, human errors and mechanical failures which make his fearful climax first possible, then probable and, ultimately … inevitable.A Thunder of Crude has already been heard to deadly effect in petro-chemical disasters around the world. If the lessons of this enthralling novel are not taken to heart, then it will be heard again - and this time, louder still.'A superb story indeed, graphically told with sharp jolts of realism and with a fine and sensitive understanding … an absorbing tale.' Sunday Herald Traveler.

    The present book is founded on the experience of some fifty years of spare-time model building, and takes the reader right through its subject from the reading and interpretation of plans to mounting the finished model on its base.This book has been written around the building of the author's own boat models, the brigantine 'Leon' following it through the use of plans to the final mounting on the base ready for the glass case. This particular model has not been slavishly followed, for where subsequent work or previous models have proved better technique, this has been quoted. Alternative methods of making the various components are included throughout. The book has been written for the builder with limited tools and facilities.

    For centuries, songs about the sea have buoyed sailors' spirits throughout their adventures and misfortunes. Bawdy, lyrical, and sentimental, sea songs--often composed by the sailorsthemselves--relate every aspect of nautical life, from mutiny and shipwreck to pressgangs and piracy to relations with wives and sweethearts.This anthology gathers together 176 sea songs, including tunes wherever possible, ranging geographically across the seven seas and in time from the 1560s (John Dory) to 1979 (The Final Trawl). The shanty, sung to accompany heavy labor, was like a shot of grog to the men, according to one oldsailor; one of the best known is Blow the Man Down (c. 1850s). Songs sung for recreation, called forebitters or shore songs, were as often comic and frivolous as they were melancholy. Though the purpose of sea songs was not primarily aesthetic, there is poetry in the vivid energy of thelanguage and in the many moods it evokes.A wealth of historical and technical detail gives fascinating backtground to the songs, and a glossary of nautical terms is also included.About the Editor:Roy Palmer is the editor of many anthologies of folk songs and ballads, including Everyman's Book of English Country Songs and E's Book of British Ballads.