Ship History

The fearsome wrath of the storms that brew over the Great Lakes has challenged and defeated some of the staunchest vessels constructed in the shipyards of port cities along the US and Canadian lakeshores. Here Richard Gebhart tells the tales of some of these ships and their captains and crews, from their launches to their sad demises—or sometimes, their celebrated retirements. This volume is a must-hear for anyone intrigued by the maritime history of the Great Lakes.

When the United States was young, importing luxury goods from China was a secretive, glamorous, often brutal business - one where teas and silks and porcelain were purchased with profits from the opium trade. But the journey by sea to New York from Canton could take six agonizing months, and so the most pressing technological challenge of the day became ensuring one’s goods arrived first to market. Barons of the Sea tells the story of a handful of cutthroat competitors who raced to build the fastest, finest, most profitable clipper ships to carry their precious cargo to American shores.

In the chilling and tumultuous annals of seafaring history, few tales are as gripping, horrifying, and ultimately transformative as "Batavia: One Unlucky Voyage". In this riveting narrative, plunge into the roiling waters of the Indian Ocean in 1628, aboard the majestic Dutch East India Company's flagship, the Batavia, on its ill-fated maiden voyage to the Spice Islands. As the ship slices through the sea, unbeknownst to the crew and unsuspecting passengers, mutinous plots thicken in the underbelly of the ship. A plot masterminded by none other than the charismatic apothecary, Jerome ...

In November 1975, the mighty Edmund Fitzgerald, one of the most iconic ships on the Great Lakes, vanished without a trace during a fierce storm on Lake Superior. The loss of all 29 crew members sent shockwaves through the maritime world and left a legacy of mystery and mourning. The Legend Lives On is both a gripping novel and a heartfelt remembrance of this tragic event. Blending fictional storytelling with real historical elements, the book brings the final voyage of the Fitzgerald to life in a way that honors both the men who sailed on her and the overwhelming power of nature that ...

In early 2020, the world was on edge. An ominous virus was spreading on different continents, and no one knew what the coming weeks would bring. Far from the hot spots, the cruise ship Zaandam, owned by Holland America, was preparing to sail from Buenos Aires, Argentina, loaded with 1,200 passengers—Americans, Europeans and South Americans, plus 600 crew. Within days, people aboard begin to fall sick. With only two doctors aboard and few medical supplies to test for or treat COVID-19, and with dwindling food and water, the ship wanders the oceans on an unthinkable journey.

In 1500 Spanish sailing ships began hauling gold from South America to Spain. Trade winds caused them to sail near the western coast of Florida, where pirates learned to gather to prey upon them. Thus it was that for 300 years the western coast of Florida became infamous as a pirate lair. We explore this, finding a unique cultural enigma. To have lived in the periods between 1500 and 1800 was not easy. Life was often unjust, hard, brutal, and short. Especially if you were poor. Yet in the midst of this period of injustice and cruelty, the unique practice of piracy created opportunities for ...

During the height of the blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat, but was soon in as much trouble as the tanker. Then pilot boat captain Frank Quirk, hearing of the Coast Guard's troubles on his radio, decided to act.

The Great Lakes have claimed countless thousands of vessels over the course of history, but its biggest and most famous victim was the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest ship of its day to sail the Great Lakes and still the largest to lie below Lake Superior's murky depths. The giant ore freighter was intentionally built "within a foot of the maximum length allowed for passage through the soon-to-be completed Saint Lawrence Seaway."

Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. But the men of the Houston fought back with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, willpower, and the undying faith that their country would prevail.

In the late 1990s, Patrick O’Brian’s beloved, massively bestselling historical novel series was destined for film. With director Peter Weir and stars Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany signed on for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, there was only one problem: The Rose, the replica eighteenth-century warship that filmmakers bought for the production, was in Newport, Rhode Island, two oceans and thousands of miles away from Hollywood. Enter a ragtag crew of thirty oddballs and tall-ship fanatics, including author Will Sofrin.

Explore the captivating history of the Titanic. When thinking about the worst known maritime disaster in history, it is impossible not to think about all of the lives lost in a single night. One of the wealthiest men alive (and the wealthiest passenger aboard the ship) died in the same accident that took the life of a baby younger than five months old in steerage. More than 100 years after the disaster, the survivors have passed on, but they left behind harrowing stories that remind us that every day is something to appreciate.

In 1956, a stunned world watched as the famous Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after being struck by a Swedish vessel off the coast of Nantucket. Unlike the Titanic, this sinking played out in real time across radios and televisions, the first disaster of the modern age. Audiences witnessed it all: the unthinkable collision of two modern vessels equipped with radar; perilous hours of uncertainty; the heroic rescue of passengers, and the final gasp as the pride of the Italian fleet slipped beneath the Atlantic, taking some 50 lives with her.

The great city of Troy is under siege as Greek heroes Achilles and Agamemnon wage bloody war over a stolen woman. In the Greek camp, another woman is watching and waiting: Briseis. She was a queen of this land until Achilles sacked her city and murdered her husband and sons. Now she is Achilles' concubine: a prize of battle. Briseis is just one among thousands of women backstage in this war - the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead - all of them voiceless in history.

In 1912, four teenagers Mary, Antonia, Timothy and John meet on board the Titanic. When they meet on the top deck they realise they all share a dream to escape thier lives, and to follow thier dreams of fame, independence and performing on stage. On the night of the sinking the teenagers have to fight the ultimate battle to achieve thier freedom and achieve thier wishes.

WATER AND ICE is both an exciting, newly-discovered sea story, and a detailed reference book that belongs in the book-collection of anyone interested in maritime or immigration history. Arthur Mattson’s original research into the maritime history of Long Island and the Port of New York in the 1830s tells of: • Two dramatic shipwrecks and rescue attempts on the South Shore of Long Island. • A mass grave in the village of Lynbrook, containing 139 victims. • Merchants, sailors, passengers, and tall ships in the Age of Sail. • The brave men and women (and the cowards) involved in the ...

On January 25, 1917, HMS Laurentic struck two German mines off the coast of Ireland and sank. The ship was carrying 44 tons of gold bullion to the still-neutral United States via Canada in order to finance the war effort for Britain and its allies. Britain desperately needed that sunken treasure, but any salvage had to be secret, since the British government dared not alert the Germans to the presence of the gold. Lieutenant Commander Guybon Damant was the most qualified officer to head the risky mission.

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.

Experienced first-hand by two flies, the first and last voyage of Titanic becomes a fact-filled feast for listeners' senses and a kid-friendly trip through maritime history that listeners won't soon forget.

In 1819, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an 80-ton bull sperm whale. Its 20-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During 90 days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

Young Daniel Arabus and his mother are slaves in the house of Captain Ivers of Stratford, Connecticut. By law they should be free, since Daniel's father fought in the Revolutionary army and earned enough in soldiers' notes to buy his family's freedom. But now Daniel's father is dead, and Mrs. Ivers has taken the notes from his mother. When Daniel bravely steals the notes back, a furious Captain Ivers forces him aboard a ship bound for the West Indies - and certain slavery.