With 300 stunning photographs, this pictorial history of tramp trade ships illustrates the evolution of these charming, itinerant merchant vessels.The tramp ship was the taxi of the seas. With no regular schedules, it voyaged anywhere and everywhere, picking up and dropping off cargoes, mainly bulk cargoes such as coal, grain, timber, china clay and oil. Older and slower vessels tended to find their way into this trade, hence the tag 'tramp'—but new tramps were als...

With more than 300 photographs, this pictorial history of steam and diesel coaster ships shows the evolution of these beautiful merchant vessels.The romance of British coasters, immortalized in John Masefield's famous poem "Cargoes", can be attributed to the ship's simple, functional beauty and its faithful toil before the advent of universal road haulage. This collection of photographs tells the story of the steam and diesel coasters from their origins in the UK a...

Cornwall is quintessentially a maritime region. Almost an island, nowhere in it is further than 25 miles from the sea. Cornwall’s often distinctive history has been moulded by this omnipresent maritime environment, while its strategic position at the western approaches—jutting out into the Atlantic—has given this history a global impact.It is perhaps surprising then, that, despite the central place of the sea in Cornwall’s history, there has not yet been a full maritime history of ...