Much is known of the slave trade and the American plantation system, but little of the ships that made it all possible.In The Slave Ship, award-winning historian Marcus Rediker draws on thirty years of research in maritime archives to create an unprecedented history of these vessels and the human drama acted out on their rolling decks. He reconstructs in chilling detail the lives, deaths, and terrors of captains, sailors, and the enslaved aboard a “floating dungeon” trailed by sharks.From the young African kidnapped from his village and sold into slavery by a neighboring tribe to the would-be priest who takes a job as a sailor on a slave ship only to be horrified at the evil he sees to the captain who relishes having “a hell of my own,” Rediker illuminates the lives of people who were thought to have left no trace.This is a tale of tragedy and terror, but also an epic of resilience, survival, and the creation of something entirely new. Marcus Rediker restores the slave ship to its rightful place alongside the plantation as a formative institution of slavery, a place where a profound and still haunting history of race, class, and modern economy was made.

    The daring explorers who crossed the vast ocean that covers a third of the earth's surface were the world's first deepsea sailors and navigators. Thousands of years before any other peoples left the sight of land, they were venturing across unknown seas to settle far-flung islands.This richly illustrated account of Pacific voyaging, past and present, examines the very latest findings from world authorities. These fascinating insights are interwoven with superb photographs, artifacts, maps, and diagrams, which together tell a story that is a testament to the ingenuity and bravery of humankind.Contributors: Ben Finney, K. R. Howe, Geoffrey Irwin, Sam Low, Roger Neich, Anne Salmond, Rawiri Taonui.

    By the end of April she was sailing south in the vanguard of the Task Force towards the Falklands. This is the personal testimony by the ship's captain, describing the bombing & sinking of HMS Coventry.

    She was a magnificent ship--the first in a new class of battleships, simultaneously monstrous and fast. She was two-and-a-half-football-fields long and so wide she could barely pass through the Panama Canal on her journey to Hawaii. At any given time, 2,339 sailors manned the ship--a total of more than 7,000 during the six years she served. As she glided into the ravaged harbor, past the wreckage of sunken American ships, the morale of the men in the surviving Pacific fleet soared. A little over two years earlier, more than 57,000 people had gathered in the Brooklyn Navy Yard on the day she was launched. As she went through her "shakedown" period, she returned repeatedly to that same naval yard for adjustments and modifications. Many New Yorkers, including radio commentator Walter Winchell, often witnessed the ship entering and departing New York Harbor and began calling her the "Showboat." Although she was an impressive structure, she was more than just a showboat. After coming to Pearl Harbor, she saw action in some 50 battles in almost every campaign in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Tokyo Bay. In 1960, when the navy announced its intention to scrap the ship, North Carolina citizens, including countless schoolchildren, raised over $330,000 to bring the ship to Wilmington, North Carolina, and preserve her as a state war memorial. In this book, Ramsey tells the story of the battleship through the eyes of the men who served her. After doing research about the ship at the National Archives in 2000, Ramsey spent six days helping the staff of the memorial compile a living-history archive of personal interviews conducted with the surviving crewmembers when they attended the ship's annual reunion. She became fascinated with the stories these men told. For the next few years, she continued talking to the men to flesh out their stories. The result is this narrative about one of the most decorated American battleships in World War II, as seen through the eyes of the young sailors who matured into men while manning this floating fortress. As Ramsey says in her introduction, "Sailors know the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story. A fairy tale begins, 'Once upon a time.' A sea story starts simply, 'Now, this is no bullshit.' This book is a sea story."In the early 1960s, Cindy Ramsey was one of thousands of children who raised money to save the battleship North Carolina and bring it to Wilmington, North Carolina. Though her family was poor, her father made sure she and her siblings had money to take to school to help save the ship from becoming scrap. Ramsey grew up in Pender County, north of where the battleship now rests. She graduated with a B.A. in English in 1999 and an M.F.A. in creative writing in 2006, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Ramsey began writing and editing the Pender Post in February 2002, then purchased the newspaper that fall. She sold the newspaper and moved to Columbus, North Carolina, in 2006. She is now retired from the state community college system.

    Arranged chronologically, each illustration is accompanied by an extended caption that adds to this visual feast a compelling history of naval warfare in the last great age of sail.

    His first expedition was not a total success (they did not reach the South Pole), and the second was, in some senses, a total failure (they never reached the Antarctic mainland at all). Yet it is the second for which he is remembered. His expedition ship Endurance was trapped, then crushed in the ice, before his party could be landed, leaving his men in a hopeless situation. For months Shackleton held his party together before taking to boats and bringing everyone safely to Elephant Island. His open-boat journey to South Georgia and the eventual rescue of the party left behind are now legendary. Visitors to Shackleton's grave in South Georgia, stepping over the lounging elephant seals that keep the dead company, pay homage to the man who had the vision, bravery and strength to open up Antarctica for all who followed. Shackleton showed the flame of leadership as few in the history of exploration have done, and nowhere does this come through more clearly than in the two accounts in this volume.

    D."Pete" Culler provided a guiding light for the wooden boat revival in the 1970s. His designs are classic melds of elegance and utility; his workmanship was akin to artistry; and his teaching and writing a blend of clarity, good sense, insight, and humor. This book brings together the complete texts of Culler's classic works Boats, Oars, and Rowing and Skiffs & Schooners, along with articles from The Mariner's Catalogs and a selection of his timeless boat designs.

    This vast region is a study in contrasts: a hub of industry that's the resting spot for billions of migrating birds. 40 million residents, immense untamed forests. 95 percent of North America's fresh water and a dumping ground for poisonous wastes. The Great Lakes is an authoritative, accessible look at an ecosystem in eternal flux. Written by one of North America's most acclaimed science and nature writers, the book explores the area's geological formation and its role in human history; its diverse plant, bird, and animal species; and its significant physical, climatic, and environmental features. This captivating tribute to the Great Lakes region is also an essential guide to the challenge of preserving the natural world.

    Brown takes a detailed look at the Allied ships, weapons, and tactics that won the submarine war in the Atlantic in this handsomely illustrated book. Beginning with the lessons learned from World War I, the author outlines inter-war developments in technology and training and describes preparations for World War II. He then examines the balance of advantage as it see-sawed between U-boats and escorts when new weapons and sensors were introduced at a rapid rate. For defending navies, the prime requirement was numbers, and Brown explains that the most pressing problem was to improve capability without sacrificing simplicity and speed of construction. The author's analyses of the resulting designs of sloops, frigates, corvettes, and destroyer escorts, and his determination of their relative effectiveness, offer insights new even to those well versed on the subject of anti-submarine warfare during the Atlantic War, a campaign that Winston Churchill famously claimed was the only one that really frightened him.

    Lighthouses! A Pop-Up Gallery of America's Most Beloved Beacons features more than 25 color photographs and original illustrations showcasing America's coastal guardians.From the historical to the technical, author Al Mitchell, a renowned expert in the field of lighthouse study, explains the important roles played by each beacon through the years.This unique tribute includes 5 amazing, architecturally accurate 3-D pop-ups designed by acclaimed paper engineer Linda Costello.Beautifully illustrated pop-ups stand approximately 9 1/2 inches tall and 5 inches in diameter and demonstrate each lighthouse's unique design and function.Pop-ups include some of the most famous landmarks in the country: Cape Hatteras Light, North Carolina's distinctive black-and-white barber pole; Old Point Loma Light, the beacon for California's Gold rush traffic; and Florida's prominent Ponce de Leon Inlet Light.This is the ultimate book for admirers of lighthouses and architecture.

    Navy ships and their crews in the Pacific until their day of reckoning three years later with a far different enemy: a deadly typhoon. In December 1944, while supporting General MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey neglected the Law of Storms, placing the mighty U.S. Third Fleet in harm's way. Drawing on extensive interviews with nearly every living survivor and rescuer, as well as many families of lost sailors, transcripts and other records from naval courts of inquiry, ships' logs, personal letters, and diaries, Bruce Henderson finds some of the story's truest heroes exhibiting selflessness, courage, and even defiance.

    Sailing and sailors, harbors and fishermen--selected from more than 100,000 negatives. It is also a moving and unforgettable evocation of a time and way of life that has already passed into memory.Since 1947, the marine photographer Norman Fortier embraced the south coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island as his studio and his inspiration. His cameras have captured images of every conceivable description on the waters from Block Island to outer Cape Cod and the offshore islands: yachts and small craft under sail and at anchor; draggers and trawlers bound to and from Georges Bank; runabouts and sportfishermen dockside and at speed; commercial vessels and tall ships. Always, his images capture the beauty and ever-changing moods of the region's coastline, harbors, and islandsOver the years his photographs have appeared in America's best boating magazines. In 1967 he published his first collection of yachting images, The Bay and the Sound, which rapidly went through four printings. More recently, the New Bedford Whaling Museum celebrated Fortier's six decades as a professional photographer with a major retrospective exhibition of his work displaying his deep roots in New Bedford, his intense love of Buzzards Bay, the Elizabeth Islands, and surrounding waters, and his uncanny ability to depict the complex interrelationship of humans, boats, and the sea.Beginning with early images of Padanaram Harbor, On the Wind carries the viewer west to Rhode Island Sound and Newport, east to Mattapoisett, Marion, and harbors at the head of Buzzards Bay. Succeeding chapters cover Martha's Vineyard and the offshore islands, the port of New Bedford and working craft, the grand spectacle that is the New York Yacht Club's annual summer cruise, and boats designed and built in South Dartmouth by the legendary Concordia Company.

    Spanish galleons, German U-boats, and presidential yachts. Pirates and privateers. The ephemeral and deadly nature of islands, dunes, inlets, and shoals. The history of the Delmarva Peninsula's Atlantic coast is rich with tales of fantasy and adventure, heroism and tragedy, greed and charity. Claiming more than 2,300 vessels since 1632, it rivals North Carolina's Outer Banks for the infamous title "The Graveyard of the Atlantic."Maritime historian Donald G. Shomette brings these stories to life. Featuring the accounts of twenty-five ill-starred vessels—some notorious and some forgotten until now—this anthology provides a fascinating history of a local maritime culture and charts how the catastrophic events along this shore significantly affected U.S. merchant shipping as a whole. Shomette weaves together history, folklore, and legend in accounts of the tragic loss of the 1750 Spanish treasure fleet, the British blockade of the Delaware in the American Revolution, the depredations of Confederate commerce raiders during the Civil War, the Billy Mitchell affair, the Hurricane of 1933, and the Nazi U-boat offensive of World War II. His appendix provides a complete catalog of all 2,300 recorded wrecks, including coordinates and location descriptions where available.A vivid montage of seafaring adventures and pivotal events in American history, this volume makes an essential contribution to the library of the history buff, wreck diver, and local adventurer.