This book is appropriately timed, with the Charles W Morgan approaching the end of her major restoration to full sailing condition. In 2013, she is due to undertake a Restoration Voyage along the US East Coast for the first time under her own sails since 1924. The Morgan is the last surviving square-rigged whale ship of the thousands built to participate in the first oil rush. This is the personal account of one of the Morgans first harpoonists.
Life of a Sailor has been considered a piece of fiction when in fact it was a highly detailed account of one man’s naval career. There are many personal accounts by soldiers and sailors of service during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. If this had been just one more, it would have been a very welcome additional view of history from someone who lived through the times, but it is especially welcome because it covers a remarkably neglected period of British Naval history. The Royal Navy seems almost to have ceased to exist after the Battle of Trafalgar and remained in limbo until the outbreak of World War in 1914. Perhaps this was inevitable when in 1805 the Hero Nelson died in the moment of his greatest triumph aboard his flagship HMS Victory.
A new FIRE Project news portal opened today.
Broadly Boats News is dedicated to Commercial and Leisure Maritime news.
Part of the 2011 development program for the FIRE Project, the new portal introduces new functionality which will be progressively switched as other elements in the FIRE Project on-line intelligent information resource complete their upgrades and enhancements.