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Prick, Perique or Plug?
Posted on October 17, 2013 7 Comments
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] I first met Ken Yalden a few years ago. Ken is a keen member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers. As we chatted he recalled I had mentioned a prick of tobacco […]
BookPick: The Lifeboat, Courage on Our Coasts
Posted on October 7, 2013 2 Comments
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] The Royal national Lifeboat Institution is a venerable charity which I hold in the highest regard. And in this day and age, when people often seem so self-centred, it’s still manned by volunteers […]
Huzzah: A Toast to Britannia!
Posted on October 2, 2013 7 Comments
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of training of British naval officers on the River Dart in Devon. In 1863 the wooden hulk HMS Britannia was moved from Portland and moored in the Dart. In 1864, after an influx of new recruits, Britannia was supplemented by HMS Hindustan. The original Britannia was […]
And a Happy Birthday to the Royal Australian Navy!
Posted on September 27, 2013 13 Comments
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] Next week an International Fleet Review is being held to commemorate the centenary of the first entry of the Royal Australian Navy’s fleet into Sydney. Prince Harry will attend the festivities on behalf […]
Novelists and 18th & 19th Century Sea Battles
Posted on September 25, 2013 17 Comments
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] One historical period, the climax of the age of fighting sail (the twenty-two- year period of the French and Napoleonic wars, 1793–1815), has always drawn me irresistibly, as it has done for so […]
BookPick: The Transformation of British Naval Strategy
Posted on September 24, 2013 Leave a Comment
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] After the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy continued to be the major arm of British strategy in the war against Napoleon, yet as late as 1807 fleets were forced from their stations […]
Hats Off to Clayton!
Posted on September 11, 2013 4 Comments
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] Over the years I’ve bought several model kits but sadly never got around to finding the time to build them – and in the end I gave them away. Perhaps this is something […]
BookPick: The British Navy, Economy and Society in the Seven Years War
Posted on August 22, 2013 1 Comment
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] William Thompson, a former foreman cooper in the Victualling Board, wrote in a work published in 1761: ‘Seamen in the King’s Ships have made buttons for their Jacketts and Trowses [sic] with the […]
Spending a penny at sea
Posted on August 14, 2013 8 Comments
Early warships featured a beakhead on the bow which was used to ram enemy galleys. Around the 900s platforms for archers were built on either side of this beakhead. Known as ‘heads’, these platforms were slotted to allow drainage from breaking waves and became a convenient way to answer the call of nature. Since then […]
BookPick: Anatomy of the Ship
Posted on August 11, 2013 Leave a Comment
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] The ‘Anatomy of the Ship’ series was first published by Conway (an imprint of Anova Books) in hardback a few years back and I snatched up (and still regularly consult) all of the […]
Julian Stockwin 