On a cold, blustery February day in 1756, large crowds gathered on both sides of the River Thames at Woolwich to witness the launch of the Royal Navy’s latest ship. With a displacement of over two thousand tons and carrying a hundred guns on three decks, the Royal Geor...

Captain James McNamara was known as one of the Royal Navy’s best fighting captains. Born into a naval family from County Clare on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, he had joined the service as a fourteen-year old during the American War of Independence. Almost immediately...

Of all the myths and legends of the sea, mermaids are amongst the most persistent. Almost as soon as humans started to sail in ships around five thousand years ago, they began to be reported. They feature in the maritime cultures of Europe, the Americas, the Middle Eas...

Vice-Admiral Sir William Cornwallis came from a military family. His older brother, Charles, was a British general during the American War of Independence, and is best remembered for surrendering his army at Yorktown to a combined force of French and Rebel troops under...

The most important port on France’s Biscay coast for centuries was La Rochelle. Heavily fortified, with a deep-water port, it had all the attributes of an excellent naval base. Unfortunately, it was also the centre of Protestant resistance to Paris, and in 1627 was sur...

Nelson will always be associated with HMS Victory. She was his flagship for his final battle at Trafalgar, and it was on her orlop deck that he breathed his last, just as the battle was won. This association with Britain’s great naval hero would go on to help save the ...

The tide, as Geoffrey Chaucer observed, waits for no man. Even out at sea, when all seems calm on the surface, the tide is there, constantly changing, flooding in and then ebbing away. Remorseless and powerful, its effect is most dramatic close to the shore. For sailor...

The Guillaume Tell (80) was one of the magnificent ships built in Toulon by Jacques-Noel Sané during the 1790s. She fought at Nelson’s victory at the battle of the Nile in 1798, but had the good fortune to be stationed towards the end of the French line, and was able t...

George Anson is best known for leading a squadron of Royal Navy ships into the largely unexplored Pacific Ocean in 1740, but his achievements were so much more. He was a talented fleet commander and a brilliant First Lord of the Admiralty during the Seven Years War. Hi...

When mutiny on a ship is mentioned, there is only one that comes to the public’s mind. Helped by countless books, TV documentaries and films, the popular view of naval mutiny is synonymous with the events that overtook the Bounty in the lonely South Pacific. Naval hist...