Other Pieces

Art of the Spanish Armada

Sea History 48 (1988): 26–29.

The portrayal of ships and shipping, whether in peace or war, is an ancient art. Unquestionably the most famous maritime scene from the Middle Ages is the 70-meter long Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror in 1066. Despite the lack of linear perspective typical of medieval graphic art, the tapestry is a remarkably sophisticated piece that combines a propagandistic celebration of the undertaking with a dramatic and detailed narrative-both pictorial and written–of the events leading up to the embarkation of the Norman army and William’s ultimate victory at the Battle of Hastings.More

Schooner Struck: Sail Training on the Malcolm Miller

Sea History 45 (1987): 40–43.

Two days of storms in the North Sea held us in Amsterdam. Gusts of wind as high as fifty knots blew plumes of spray off the IJ across de Ruijterkade, the road that runs along the river. Low puffy clouds raced across the sky and the sporadic hard-driving drizzle leaked through every chink in our foul weather gear as we walked in the city. The closest comfort was the Café de Zeilvaart (“seafaring café”) directly across the road from where we lay. On the street outside the café an old leeboard sloop undergoing restoration was lying on its beam ends and inside piles of pamphlets describing this and other projects were stacked neatly on the window sills.More

The Discovery of the Columbia River Recorded

Sea History 43 (1987): 20–21.

Among the early voyages that took American enterprise beyond the confines of the Atlantic Ocean, those of Captain Robert Gray in the Columbia Rediviva to the Pacific Northwest, to China, and thence around the world, stand out for their boldness, their commercial success, and for the discoveries that resulted from them.More

The Gosnold Voyage of 1602: An Introduction

Sea History 42 (1986–87): 8–10.

Bartholomew Gosnold was, so far as we know, the first European to come to the islands south of Cape Cod. His three-week stay on what he named Elizabeth’s Island, between Vineyard Sound and Buzzard’s Bay, heralded the beginning of sustained efforts to establish English-speaking people in North America.More

Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, Loyalist and Patriot

Sea History 42 (1986–87): 30–31.

The first schoolship program undertaken in the United States was that promoted and established by the British philanthropist and seaman Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, in 1829, at Nantucket. Two years before, Sir Isaac had endowed the Coffin School on Nantucket “for the purpose of promoting decency, good order, and morality and of giving a good English education to the youth who are descendants of the late Tristram Coffin.”More

Bring Home the Vicar!

Sea History 38 (1985–86): 12–16.

In 1912, according to a man from thereabouts, a hulk named Vicar of Bray came to her present resting place at Goose Green, head of Choiseul Sound in the Falkland Islands. With coal in her holds, the Vicar was blown ashore in a storm and fetched up in shallow waters to be incorporated, eventually, into a pier. So it is that one finds her today, weather-beaten but not bowed. The high latitudes of the South Atlantic, inhospitable as they are to man and ships, are even less a place for worms and other predators that feast on ships’ timbers.More