REVIEWS
Terrifying storms, sinking ships, daring rescues Tales of tragedy and triumph from past to present in America's maritime history
Watch the great seafaring past come alive as you learn how Americans have struggled through more than 100 shipwrecks in Boston Harbor. The author, a maritime historian, shares a wealth of detail to please even the most ardent of marine historians. The book supplies appendixes in chronological order, listing location, cargo and vessel types, as well as maps, photos, and illustrations.
SWpwrecks and Nautical I.ore of Boston Harbor A Mariner's Chronical ofMore Than 100 Shipwrecks, Heroic Rescues and Salvages, Treasure Tales, Island J.egends, and Harbor Anecdotes by Robert F. Sullivan
$14.95 pages
0-871~97-9
Available from your local bookstore or marine museum Or order directly from the publisher: Globe Pequot Press, Box Q, Chester, CT Chi12, 1-!rn-243-0495; in Connecticut, 1-S00-962-0973.
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time National Park, San Francisco). And then there is the story of a remarkable ship and captain. Snow & Burgess was launched in 1878 from Thomastown , Maine, as a 228-ft full-rigged ship and converted in 1901 in Oakland to a five-masted schooner. Cogill gives us an intimate picture of the Doric discipline with which Captain A.H. Sorensen managed his ship. His attentiveness to every creak of the ship ' s timbers and his unshakeable ideals of seamanship. He broke so many records that Snow & Burgess' s time at sea became a matter of betting on the floor of the Merchant' s Exchange. When God Was an Atheist Sailor is light and uplifting reading, an example of where biography works so wellwhen an author captures the flavor of a distinct era. At the time of reading this book I had the pleasure of touring the Wavertree restoration project at South Street Seaport, New York, and to my surprise found myself peopling this similar vessel with Cogill 's characters, so lucidly memorable they seemed. KH Fireboats: A Complete History of the Development of Fireboats in America, Paul Ditzel (Fire Buff House, New Albany IN, 1989, 160pp, illus, biblio, index, $24.95hb) Paul Ditzel writes books about firefighting, just as Fire Buff House publishes them, but in this oversize volume he has become a maritime historian. The format is reminiscent of the several volumes of Gordon Newall (Pacific Tugboats) or Jim Gibbs (Pacific Square Riggers) ; detailed, well-researched text to accompany an extensive black-andwhite photograph collection. And it is an interesting story of nearly two hundred fireboats active in American ports since the first was commissioned in 1866. Their work has hardly been unimportant, but it has not really captured much historical attention; only one fireboat, for example, is in an American maritime vessel collection (Tacoma, Washington). The reader of this volume will learn a good deal about the technical side, including problems of design. City fathers, for example, realizing that fireboats most of the time do nothing but cost money , have been known to insist that they be tugboats as well-usually not a happy compromise. Similarly, the means of propulsion was an issue (gasoline, in particular always seemed a dangerous fuel for a vessel the purpose of
which was to go as close as possible to fires), or the very size: larger boats might be more stable and have more pumping capacity, but were likely to be considerably less maneuverable working among piers or in narrow waters. The most persistent controversy of all was the acquisition of fireboats. The common practice has been to buy protection only after a disastrous port fire. Just how major such a fire can be, can be seen in the Los Angeles fire of 1988, which required the services of five fireboats, 21 engines, five aerial ladders, and SCUBA-equipped firefighters to go under the fire to place equipment. A substantial appendix lists all American fireboats entering service from 1866 to 1989 along with a useful bibliography and comprehensive index. For any comprehensive collection of vessel types, this would appear to be an essential volume, but it is also a worthwhile volume for the average reader interested in some of the less-explored comers of maritime history. BRITON
c. BUSCH
Colgate University Hamilton, N Y (This review is reprinted with permission from the newsletter of the North Atlantic Society for Oceanic History.) Tall Ships of Newburyport; The Montana; The Whittier; The Nearchus, George W. Goodwin, ed. Freda Morrill Abrams (Freewind Press, PO Box 527, Yellow Springs OH 45387, 63pp, illus, $14.95pb) From Captain George Goodwin's reminiscences, written after he retired from seafaring in 1909, Freda Morrill Abrams has selected accounts of his passages in three ships of Newburyport, Massachusetts, wrapping the straightforward narratives around with her own descriptions of the owners, builders, officers , and seamen of these Yankee square riggers. The editor's painstaking research provides entree into vanished ways of life ashore and at sea. PS Ocean Traders; From the Portuguese Discoveries to the Present Day, Michael W. Marshall (Facts on File, New York, 1990, 192pp, illus, biblio, index, $24.95hb) This richly illustrated overview of the development of merchant shipping from the 1400s to the present provides a lively introduction to the period ofocean commerce that did so much to shape the SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990