Naval Surgeons
Age of sail ships were utterly reliant on the health and strength of their crews. Before the introduction of steam winches in the 19th...
The Lighthouse Stevensons
Robert Louis Stevenson, writer, traveller and creator of some of literature’s most enduring tales, was a crashing disappointment to his...
The Royal George
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 Cutting Out of the L’Utile
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...
Mermaids
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...
Admiral Cornwallis’s retreat
Vice-Admiral Sir William Cornwallis came from a military family. His older brother, Charles, was a British general during the American...
Rochefort
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...
The Man who saved the Victory
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...
Tides
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,...
The Guillaume Tell’s last stand
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...
