She was four city blocks long, boasting the latest, most ingenious safety devices of the age, a French sidewalk cafe, a grand staircase worthy of an opera house, private promenade decks--but only 20 lifeboats for the 2,207 passengers on board. Gliding through the calm sea, the Titanic struck an iceberg--and descended into history. This absorbing book provides a minute-by-minute account of the "unsinkable" Titanic's demise.

Here is a survivor's vivid account of the greatest maritime disaster in history. The information contained in Gracie's account is available from no other source. He provides details of those final moments, including names of passengers pulled from the ocean and of those men who, in a panic, jumped into lifeboats as they were being lowered, causing injury and further danger to life. Walter Lord, author of 'A Night to Remember', comments that Gracie's...

Presents the extraordinary story of the Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia and its thirty thousand employees and shipyard workers who battle layoffs, the elements, impossible deadlines, extraordinary pressure, workplace dangers, and a pandemic to build the U.S. Navy's newest and most powerful aircraft carrier.

"Why does the sinking of the Titanic hold such fascination for us? Many reasons have been advanced for the continuing fascination of this epic tragedy, but none, we think, can contribute as much to an understanding of it as the four accounts collected in this volume. All four authors were survivors, and each presents the catastrophe from his own viewpoint; the icy waters, the cries of the drowning, the confusion and the heroism, are given an intensely...

When she set sail from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York on 10 April 1912, RMS Titanic, the pride of the White Star fleet, was the largest ocean liner in the world. Deemed 'practically unsinkable' because of her double-bottomed hull and watertight compartments, she carried over 2,000 passengers and crew, although only sufficient lifeboats for just over half that number. Four days out of Southampton, on the night of 14 April, she struck...

Edward Teach – ‘Blackbeard’-is one of the legends of the so-called ‘golden age of piracy’. There have been so many accounts of his short, bloody career that it is hard to see him and his times in a clear historical light. This new study looks for the man behind the legend, and it gives a vivid insight into the nature of piracy and the naval operations that were launched against it.The narrative focuses on the roles played by the Governor...

Alexander Exquemelin, whose probable French origins remain unclear, was most certainly on board the ship of the infamous pirate captain, Henry Morgan, during his raid on Panama City in 1671. His association with the buccaneers began around 1669, when he was sold from his indentured servitude with the French West India Company to a barber-surgeon, who taught him the trade. His subsequent years as a surgeon on board various pirate ships led to the publication...

Much has been written about Titanic, the British passenger liner that sank on her maiden voyage after a collision with an iceberg in 1912; however, until now little mention has been made about the intricate world of the ship's complement, which comprised more than the total of third-class passengers alone. Titanic researcher Günter Bäbler examines in detail the working structure of the crew, including the complex arrangement of the engineering department...

For three decades the Windrush was the maritime Zelig of the 20th century. Designed in 1930 in the Hamburg boatyard of a Jewish shipbuilder to ferry Germans to a new life in South America, it wasn't long before Goebbels requisitioned her. She became a Nazi troop carrier, a support vessel for the pocket battleship Tirpitz, and a prison ship transporting Jews to Auschwitz. Captured by the British in 1945 and renamed the SS Empire Windrush, she then...

The best manual ever produced on rigging a sailing ship, based on extensively revised and updated 1848 edition prepared by Biddlecombe, Master in the Royal Navy. Complete definition of terms, on-shore operations, process of rigging ships, reeving the running rigging and bending sails, rigging brigs, yachts and small vessels, more. 17 plates.