Wooden Warship Construction: A History in Ship Models

Description

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich houses the largest collection of scale ship models in the world, many of which are official, contemporary artefacts made by the craftsmen of the navy or the shipbuilders themselves, and ranging from the mid seventeenth century to the present day. As such they represent a three-dimensional archive of unique importance and authority. Treated as historical evidence, they offer more detail than even the best plans, and demonstrate exactly what the ships looked like in a way that even the finest marine painter could not achieve. This book takes a selection of the best models to both describe and demonstrate the development of warship construction in all its complexity from the beginning of the 18th century to the end of wooden shipbuilding. For this purpose it reproduces a large number of model photos, all in full colour, and including many close-up and detail views. These are captioned in depth, but many are also annotated to focus attention on interesting or unusual features, which can be shown far more clearly than described. Although pictorial in emphasis, the book weaves the pictures into an authoritative text, producing an unusual and attractive form of technical history. AUTHOR: Brian Lavery has written 26 book on maritime history, though 'Assault Landing Craft is his first title for Seaforth Publishing. Brian is Curator Emeritus at the National Maritime Museum and is on the advisory committee of HMS Victory. He was historical advisor on the film 'Master and Commander' and has sailed in many vessels, from a dinghy to a square rigger.

BRIAN LAVERY is one of the countrys leading maritime historians and the author of more than thirty books, including the highly successful Nelsons Navy and Empire of the Seas. He was for many years a curator at the National Maritime Museum and while there became an expert on its models, producing the definitive work on the collection.

"If you like ships, especially wooden military ones, this book will teach you a great deal. A high-quality book which is recommended to all ship historians and modellers" - Military Modelling