BOOKS •
Book• of the Sea
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One source for both new ~ and out of print books. r All government charts.
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~O • *~ rel: 401-841-4252 0/(5'fO Lee's Wharf.Newport, RI 02840 SAILING SHIP HISTORIES
Information on 19th-ce ntury American merchant vessels from official records and contemporary reports. For samp le data on owners, ro utes, cargoes , captains , crew, passengers, litigation, disasters, etc ., write:
SAILING SHIP HISTORIES P.O . Box 8 2, Be lmont, MA 0 2 178
NAUTICAL BOOKS, FILMS, MODELS, RECORDS ON OCEAN LINERS AND AIRSHIPS: Complete cata log of items : 50¢ in Coin or Stamps. Order from : 7 C'S PRESS, INC. P.O. BOX 57, DEPT. SH RIVERSIDE, CT. 06878 USA
MARITIME LAWAND TECH NICAL BOOKS FORTHE SHIPPING AND EXPORT INDUSTRY SEND FDR DU R FR£ [ CAIALDG
24 BEAVER STREET, N.Y., N.Y. 10004 (21 2) 425-0123
EDWARD J. LEFKOWICZ Rare Books & Mss. Relati113 to the Sea & its Islands & to Nautical Scieuce
P 0 Box 630 Fairhaven· Massachusetts 0 27 19 ·USA
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The Whaleboat-A Study of Design, Construction and Use From 1850 to 1970, by Willits D. Ansel (Mystic CT, Mystic Seaport Inc., 1978, 147 pp., ill., $7.50 paper, $12.50 hardbound). The name "whaleboat" has been casually applied to a variety of small craft since perhaps colonial times. Currently the US Navy classifies its 26 ft. fiberglass power launch as a "motor whaleboat". Mr. Ansel's book brings the matter into focus by describing in excellent detail those small boats designed, built and equipped for the hunting and killing of whales, the only type properly deserving of the name. He begins with a brief history of the development of the type from early British and Nordic references in the 15th century and a Basque seal (ca. 1335) to the peak of its refinement in the 1870s. Succeecling chapters deal with its use, equipment, sailing rigs, builders, construction and related subjects. The text is complemented with a good selection of photographs, sketches, lines plans and reproductions of prints and paintings. The "1970" in the title refers to the three whaleboats built recently at Mystic's small craft shop. Different sailing rigs and other gear were accurately duplicated and several boat crews, using historic accounts for reference, simulated as accurately as possible all the techniques used to attack and kill a whale. There is no valid reason to hunt whales todaybut there is good reason to keep in life the boats and disciplines of an era when the contest was on more nearly equal terms . DON MEISNER Talbot-Booth's Merchant Ships, Vol. 2, ed. R. A. Streater & D. G. Greenman (New York, Nichols Pub. Co ., 1978, 207 pp., ill., $25.00) . This is the second of three volumes being produced by the British Ship Recognition Corps, to provide "a reference for the enthusiast" and "a 'right hand' to the armed forces of the free world in their constant battle in the identification of merchant shipping.'' This volume concentrates on the decreasingly common engines aft/ bridge amidships configuration, and the increasingly common engines aft/ bridge forward configuration. The third volume in this series, due out this year, will feature the engines and bridge aft configuration found in the new supertankers and gas carriers. These are excellent reference books containing hundreds of illustrated identification profiles, plus basic technical data on a significant number of the world' s currently active merchant ships. MICHAEL GILLEN
Toy Boats 1870-1955: A Pictorial History, by Jacques Milet and Robert Forbes (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1979, 120 pp, illus. b/ w and color, $24.95) . This photographic collection of antique toy boats shows the changes in toys, from landlubber to aquatic, and the rapid changes in ship types characterizing the past century. How many boys were in-
fluenced by these toys to become riverboat pilots or to go to sea? Most, perhaps, only dreamed over them, and learned from them, as you may enjoy doing in the pages of this fine collection. MICHAEL A. SERENSEN Mr. Serensen, a model maker himself, is a leading light of the NMHS, Shipcraft Guild, and Nautical Research Guild.
Whitehaven and the Tobacco Trade, by Nancy Eaglesham (Whitehaven Museum, Whitehaven, England, 1979, 12 pp, illu s trated. UK-30p plu s po s tage; US-$1.25 postpaid). For a brief period in the 18th century Whitehaven was a major port in the export of manufactured goods to the Colonies and the import of tobacco . At the peak of the trade, around 1740, ships made several trips a year to ports such as Fredericksburg or Port Tobacco in search of " strong Virginia" or " light dry Maryland," gradually selling off their English goods to buy the local leaf. John Paul Jones, in fact, began his sea-going career on just such a Whitehaven vessel. The pamphlet details the economics of the trade, with excerpts from cargo manifests, and briefly discusses the type of ship construction necessary for Cumbrian ports which dried out at low tide. With the decline of the tobacco trade, due in part to economics and in part to Colonial dissatisfaction with locally manufactured goods, the local collieries assumed an increasingly important role, and it was a Whitehaven collier, Thompson, that Jones burned during his 1778 raid . NICHOLAS DEAN M r. Dean ser ves as volunteer in the NMHS Falkland Islands project.
SEA HISTORY, WINTER 1980