In 1628 the Dutch and Spanish had already been at war, with the occasional truce, for sixty years. What initially had begun as a war for Dutch independence in northern Europe had by this stage spilled ...

An account of one of Anson’s crew who suffered madness at sea and, three years after his return, committed a murder in his hometown of Edinburgh. He had previously shown clear evidence of an ...

Folklore, myths and legends relating to the sea have existed for as long as humans have been travelling by sea. The alien nature of the marine environment, the almost inconceivable scale of the oceans ...

The earliest map of London that has come down to our time is Wyngaerde’s panorama, dating from between 1543 and 1550. It provides a bird’s-eye view of the whole city, together with Westminster and ...

The shortage of timber for the dockyards which resulted from Lord St Vincent’s attack on the timber merchants’ cartel caused deep concern, and Nelson’s visit to Monmouth appears to have solved the ...

From the Society for Nautical Research in partnership with Lloyd’s Register Foundation, I’m Sam Willis. And this is the Mariners Mirror podcast, the world’s number one podcast dedicated to all of ...

A detailed and technical article on the development of ships in the Renaissance period. The author gives examples of sail development, build development and types of rigging. Focussing mainly on the ...

Sir Robert Dudley designed a number of warships and one in particular, the Galerata, was built at Porto Ferraio in 1610. Although intended to operate with both galleys and ships it proved ...

This note recounts the part played by Captain Dowman and his wife Catherine, a Courtauld heiress, in the saving of the Cutty Sark. The free quarterly newsletter of the Society for Nautical Research ...

The origin of the term ‘blazer’ is explained, and traced to the brilliant scarlet uniform of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St John’s College, Cambridge. As applied to men of war, the names Blazer, ...

An interesting copy of a treatise on the proportions used in ship building, the result of years of experience. The sources of the information are explored. The free quarterly newsletter of the Society ...

Today we have episode 7 of our Iconic Ships mini-series in which a curator of a historic ship makes a case for their ship being iconic, or a historian takes a ship from history but which sadly no ...