Discusses the development of the visual signalling system known in its various forms as Semaphore, ranging from hand-held flags to tower-mounted rotating arms, using differing codes and languages at ...

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, ...

Customs records provide a rich source of information about individual vessels and their cargoes. The earliest regular information about ships and cargoes trading in English ports is found in such ...

Although ship design and construction did not change and Charles 1st’s Sovereign of the Seas would not have been out of place at Trafalgar, the seventeenth century marked a major transition in naval ...

Whether medieval navies used quicklime to incapacitate enemy sailors and to render their decks treacherous has not been satisfactorily answered. Drawing on the accounts of numerous medieval authors, ...

This is the first episode of a two-part mini-series on the history of maritime special forces. In this episode we hear about the Second World War origins, development and early history of the SBS – ...

In the 17thCentury systematic drainage of the Fenland freed large areas for agricultural development. To export products to the harbours of The Wash, the rivers Nene and Ouse together with their ...

Between the mid-eighteenth century and 1900 almost all the figureheads on British warships were carved in the likeness of an individual man, woman, beast or bird, each of which was intended to ...

The article deals with the particular knowledge of certain parts of the sea acquired by local mariners, usually by tradition or from their own experience. Despite the growing availability of surveys ...

It is a long-standing assumption that the colour scheme of British warships between 1775 and 1815 changed from yellow hulls, through the yellow and black ...

Abstract Advances in warship design over the last century are displayed on the covers of this excellent book. On the front, a photograph taken in 1913 shows the launch of the battleship Queen ...

A description of the ceremony by which merchant sailors celebrated ending their first month at sea, regarded as work done for nothing. The free quarterly newsletter of the Society for Nautical ...