With the invasion of Portugal (1807) during the Napoleonic War and French designs on the Portuguese Far East Empire, the British, under the energetic leadership of Lord Minto, Governor General of ...

WW1 interrupted the education of significant numbers of young men who served in the armed forces. At the cessation of hostilities the Royal Navy decided to do something to redress the matter. In early ...

Continuing from his Note in MM Volume 2, Issue 3 Vaughan provides earlier written evidence of the general use of ‘port’ when instructing the helmsman to steer to the left. In his 1644 ‘Seaman’s ...

Writing in his Glossaire Nautique, concerning various ancient pictures of ships of unnamed types that had come under his observation, Jal describes one, not illustrated by him, in terms equivalent to ...

The article questions the accuracy of a number of written accounts and film presentations of the voyage and mutiny and of Bligh’s character. Many contain much uncritical borrowing from elsewhere.

The free quarterly newsletter of the Society for Nautical Research keeping you up to date with all society news, short research articles, headlines from the world of maritime research and heritage, ...

Born in 1733, Alexander Brodie prospered as a master-blacksmith making fire-grates and register stoves. He designed a new and safer firehearth for ships; two large boilers over a fire-grate, ...

A brief report is presented on the discovery in 1974 of the prow of a Carthaginian warship on the sea floor north of Marsala, Sicily. The discovery complements the stern of the ‘Punic Ship’ found in ...

This short article tells the story of the Englishman Francis Sheldon. Between 1658 and 1692, he built ships in Sweden, Denmark, England and Ireland, mainly in Sweden. He spent twenty years there, ...

The use of the wheel to activate a ship’s rudder via the tiller came into use in the early 1700’s, in England, France and later Venetia. The essential problem was to translate the rotary motion of the ...

This paper describes the development of the Bidston Hill signal station overlooking the entrances to the port of Liverpool, which was completed in 1771. Its purpose was to give shipowners as much ...

Early steam navigation was restricted to river, coastal and short sea passages. Many improvements were required before ocean travel became viable for steamships, due to the low efficiency of their ...