Ships and boats: general interest

William Dampier - buccaneer, journalist, naturalist and explorer - once shocked and delighted the literary world with the scarcely credible tales of his voyages.

It is now a century since the Lusitania sank.

Cornwall's rich waters have always provided a bountiful harvest for its fisherman.

The early 1930s could not have been worse for shipping.

Alfred Mylne the First designed exciting, beautiful yachts, which have won many races over the past 120 years - some are still collecting prizes.

On 29 September 1995, the Liverpool dockers, the backbone of Liverpool's revered maritime industry, refused to cross a picket line and were immediately dismissed by the Mersey Docks & Harbour Co.

The port of New York has been a centre for trade since the eighteenth century, when it was involved in trade between Europe, Africa and North America.

Fingal represented the last and final 'classic' style of tender once found throughout the three General Lighthouse Authorities of the British Isles.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution was established in 1824 and has a long and proud tradition of saving life at sea.

In May 1940, following the rapid advance of German troops through Holland, Belgium and France, the British Expeditionary Force and French army retreated to Dunkirk.

On a blustery, West Highland summer's day in the early 1950s, a black-hulled mail steamer ploughed its way northwards from Mallaig up through the Sound of Sleat between the mainland of Scotland and the Isle of Skye.

Formed on Merseyside in 1913, Coast Lines grew from a small fleet of sixteen coastal ships operating in the Irish Sea to the world's largest coastal fleet.

Light in the Darkness examines the origins of the lightship service, the obstacles and prejudices that faced originators of the idea and the subsequent development of the vessels and working practices over the years.

For more than 150 years it was the world's most powerful force: between victory at Trafalgar in 1805 and the withdrawal from 'east of Suez' in the 1960s, the ships of the Royal Navy were ubiquitous.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution was established in 1824 and has a long and proud tradition of saving life at sea.

Beautiful boats last a long time, but ugly ones die young.

Cunard's advertising boasts of having 'The Most Famous Ocean Liners in the World'.

For many years in Yachts and Yachting magazine, these very practical, workable sketches by yacht designer Ian Nicolson appeared regularly and they apply to every part of a boat.

Getting afloat need not be difficult or expensive if you were to build your own boat.

This fully revised third edition of a classic manual is a mine of information for yachtsmen to customise their boats.

This is the story of how the Second World War affected leisure boating: of the people who managed to overcome huge difficulties to go sailing during the war itself and the difficulties of re-establishing the sport in post-war years; of the sailing and yacht clubs which survived bombings, requisitioning, shortages and a host of other problems, and still thrive today.

The federal immigration station on Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, opened on 1 January 1892.

Cold-moulded wood boatbuilding predates fibreglass and has been used successfully for sailing dinghies, offshore racing yachts, fast multihulls and powerboats, and even rowing shells.

The merchants of Manchester were concerned about the high tariffs charged at Liverpool Docks and the excessive rates for transhipment of goods to Manchester.

This trilogy tells how Ian Nicolson, yachtsman, naval architect and author, joined a Canadian and a Norwegian to sail the 45-foot ketch Maken from England via the Panama Canal to Vancouver, Canada.

For generations of Londoners, a trip to the seaside aboard a pleasure steamer such as the Royal Eagle, Golden Eagle or Royal Daffodil was the highlight of the year and these 'Poor Man's Liners' were part of childhood and family life for huge numbers of people.

On 8 August 1974, the world's last seagoing paddle steamer was sold by her owners for the princely sum of a pound.

London's Docklands have a rich and varied history.

The Mersey has changed over the past thirty years.

The Manchester Ship Canal was a huge engineering achievement.

Created in 1973 with the amalgamation of the Caledonian Steam Packet Co.

The Caledonian Steam Packet Co.

With a foreword by the Duke of Edinburgh, who travelled to the Antarctic on the maiden voyage of the RRS John Biscoe, this is the story of the ship's final voyage in the Antarctic to the British Antarctic Survey bases.

The Georgian town of Whitehaven, located on the West coast of Cumbria, was once the third most important port in Britain but today is only used by a handful of fishing vessels.

As mankind gave up the nomadic hunter gatherer life and became farmers, they were largely self sufficient.

On 17 September 1921, the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton left London aboard his ship Quest, bound for the Antarctic on what would prove to be his final voyage.

David MacBrayne's involvement in West Highland shipping services soon grew to encompass all of the major routes to the Isles.

In 1871, a bright new star appeared on the Liverpool shipping scene.

Founded in 1838 in Liverpool, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was the first to operate steamships in the Pacific and primarily traded from the UK to the Pacific coasts of South America.

The advent of the jet airliner all but killed the liner on the Atlantic route but the ships to Australia survived into the 1970s, not just on the liner trade but also carrying emigrants from the UK and Europe to Australia.

Cork Harbour, at the mouth of the River Lee, is one of the largest natural harbours in the world.

2008 was a magical year for Cunard.

The islands surrounding Scapa Flow made one of Britain's best natural harbours, while the location at the north of Scotland protected the approaches to the North Sea and Atlantic.

Services from mainland Scotland to Orkney and Shetland were, from the dawn of steam navigation right up until 2002, in the hands of the North of Scotland, Orkney & Shetland Shipping Company, known as the North Company, whose predecessors dated back to 1790 and which became part of P&O Ferries in 1975.

On 9 January 1972, the mighty Queen Elizabeth, then the largest liner in the world, caught fire in Hong Kong harbour.

In 1908, the White Star Line announced it was constructing a pair of sister ships at the Harland & Wolff yard in Belfast.

The quest for the Water Speed Record is one of the most dangerous, least forgiving and most unheralded of endeavours.

Built at the end of the Depression and launched on the weekend of the Munich Crisis, the Queen Elizabeth's maiden voyage was a wartime dash to New York to escape the Luftwaffe's bombs.

Since man first inhabited the United Kingdom, he has fished for food.

The 1950s and 1960s was the last golden age of ocean liners.