On 9 October 1943, the Liverpool Tidal Institute received its most challenging task to date: to calculate the optimal day and hour for the largest
Maritime History
The Razzle Dazzle Camouflage: When British Artists Fought German U-Boats
If you have ever been to a modern-art gallery, you must have heard the likes of: ‘Hmm…what am I looking at?’ ‘What in the world
Shanghai: The Port of the World
Shanghai, the busiest port the world has ever seen, may also be the oldest in existence. The tiny fishing village sprouted out of the marshy
Great Ships That Saved Jewish Refugees From the Holocaust (And Some That Couldn’t)
The recent decade has been grimly generous with humanitarian catastrophes, and while recent history abounds with natural disasters, man-made ones have often surpassed them in
The Evolution of Early Naval Submarines: Part 2
In Part 1 we saw the early outbursts of inspiration and genius, which led to random but fascinating developments – the maritime equivalent of Woodstock,
The Evolution of Early Naval Submarines: Part 1
It lurks in the depths, blind in the complete darkness below, but hearing every little sound around. Above it – a troop transport with two
Whales of the Great Lakes
A peculiar species of cargo ship populated the Great Lakes in the late 1800s – the whaleback. Designed by Scottish captain and inventor Alexander McDougall,
Splice the Mainbrace: How the Navy Gave Us Cocktails
The rowdy sailor and his bottle of rum. Few stereotypes have stuck for so long, and this one is so deeply etched in our minds
The HMHS Britannic – Greatness Without Glamour
The tragic demise of the RMS Titanic still haunts the world more than a century later, while after decades of faithful service, the RMS Olympic
In the Flames of Madness – the SS Morro Castle
In the dark hours before dawn on 9 September 1934, the residents of Asbury Park, a seaside town in New Jersey, woke up to a