Cargo Ships: Books - History and Shipping Lines

Looking Back at Traditional Cargo Ships

Covers cargo ships that are termed mid-ships layout, three-quarters aft layout and also those with a split superstructure. The book looks at cargo liners, former cargo liners and tramp ships in service under a wide variety of flags. Some ships date back as far as 1914 and some of the classic designs that appeared through to the early 1980s are also covered.

This is the latest book in the Looking Back......series. There are stunning colour photographs of traditional cargo ships with detailed captions giving information about the ship, its history and location.
For the purpose of this book, a traditional cargo ship is defined as a dry-cargo vessel that has cargo accommodation both forward and aft of its machinery space.

Information

Author:	Andrew Wiltshire
Details:	80 pages, 20 x 25 x 1.1 cm / 7.9 x 9.8 x 0.43 in, hardback
Illustrations:	numerous colour photos
Publisher:	Bernard McCall (GB, 2015)
ISBN:	9781902953694

Tramp Ships - An Illustrated History

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. It was the older and slower vessels that tended to find their way into this trade, hence the tag 'tramp', though new tramps were built, often with the owner's eye on chartering to the liner companies.

In this book by the well-known author Roy Fenton, their evolution is described over the course of more than 100 years, from the 1860s, when the steam tramp developed from the screw collier, until it was largely replaced by the specialist bulk carrier in the 1980s.

An introduction looks at the design and building of tramps before going on to describe the machinery, from simple triple-expansion turbines to diesel engines. Their operation and management and the life of the officers and crews is also covered.
The meat of the book is to be found in the 300 wonderfully evocative photographs of individual ships which illustrate the development of the tramp and its trades through the last years of the 19th century, the two world wars, and the postwar years.
Each caption gives the dimensions, the owners and the builder, and outlines the career, with notes on trades and how they changed over a ship's lifetime. Design features are highlighted and notes on machinery included.

Information

Author:	R. S. Fenton
Details:	176 pages, 26.5 x 25 x 1.8 cm / 10.4 x 9.8 x 0.71 in, hardback
Illustrations:	over 300 b&w photos
Publisher:	Seaforth Publishing (GB, 2013)
ISBN:	9781848321588

Wartime Standard Ships

In both World Wars there arose a pressing need for merchant tonnage both to supplement existing ships but, more importantly, to replace ships that had been sunk by enemy action, and the key to the Allied strategy in both wars was a massive programme of merchant shipbuilding.
This need gave rise to a series of standard designs with increasing emphasis on prefabrication and a progression towards welded hulls.

This book tells the remarkable story of the design and construction of the many types that not only contributed to their country s war efforts, but were also responsible for a cultural change in world shipbuilding that would lay the foundations for the post-war industry.
The story begins in the First World War with the National type cargo ships which were the first examples of prefabricated construction. The best known of all types of wartime standard ships, of course, were the Liberty ships and their successor, the better equipped Victory ships, both built in the United States. Some 2,700 Liberty ships were built and this incredible achievement undoubtedly saved the Allies from losing the War. In Canada, the Ocean and Park ships made a further major contribution.

Germany and Japan also introduced standard merchant shipbuilding programmes during the Second World War and these are covered in detail. The many different types and designs are all reviewed and their roles explained, while the design criteria, innovative building techniques and the human element of their successful operation is covered.

Information

Author:	Nick Robins
Details:	160 pages, 24.5 x 19 cm / 9.7 x 7.5 in, hardback
Illustrations:	160 photos and drawings
Publisher:	Seaforth Publishing (GB, 2017)
ISBN:	9781848323766

Cargo Liners and Tramps

In the post-war era, there was still a demand for ocean-going travel, not just on the glamorous large liners and mail ships, but also on much smaller ships. Many of these could be just as well appointed and comfortable and doubtless provided an intimacy that may have been missing from the larger and faster ships.
If time was not a vital consideration, and money possibly was, then travel by cargo liner was an ideal option.

The pictures presented here represent souvenirs of an era that air travel and the onset of the fast container ship have totally obliterated. Many of the photographs presented here were acquired between 1961 and 1965 from the major British and European shipping companies, some of whom responded particularly generously. Some Asian and American companies contributed as well.

This material gives an insight into the use of postcards and photographs as a vital part of marketing, promotion and public relations in a world that was soon to disappear. Here, Mark Lee Inman collects some of the most interesting pictures and postcards of this era.

Information

Author:	Mark Lee Inman
Details:	96 pages, 23.5 x 21.5 x 1.5 cm / 9.25 x 8.5 x 0.59 in, paperback
Illustrations:	180 b&w and colour photos
Publisher:	Amberley Publishing (GB, 2018)
ISBN:	9781445673844

Handling Cargo : Freighters of the 1950s and '60s

Freighters of the 1950s and '60s - with masts, booms and hatches - were the last of their generation. It was the end of an era, just before the massive transition to faster, more efficient containerised shipping on larger and larger vessels.
These were `working ships', but many would be retired prematurely and finish up under flags of convenience, for virtually unknown owners, before going off to the scrappers in the 1970s and '80s.

For some ships, their life's work was cut short and their decommissioning was quick. In "Handling Cargo", William H. Miller remembers the likes of Cunard, Holland America and United States Lines on the North Atlantic, Moore McCormack Lines to South America, Farrell Lines to Africa and P&O out East.

Information

Author:	William H. Miller
Details:	120 pages, 22.5 x 25 x 1.5 cm / 8.9 x 9.8 x 0.59 in, paperback
Illustrations:	96 b&w and 80 colour photos
Publisher:	The History Press Ltd (GB, 2018)
ISBN:	9780750984348

First Class Cargo : A History of Combination Cargo-Passenger Ships

An unusual blend of cargo freight, holiday-making passengers and government officials, the combination cargo-passenger ship is an oddity now all but relegated to the past.
In its heyday, however, royals such as Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, were known to travel by 'banana boat' to the Caribbean. Ships such as Fyffes Line's Golfito would stop at Trinidad, Barbados and Kingston to load up with bananas, whilst passengers would make the most of the exotic setting.

Carrying between 50 and 100 passengers with anything up to 10,000 tons of cargo, these ships were both working freighters as well as elegant cruise-like ships, renowned for their intimate, yacht-like atmosphere.
William Miller is the author of ninety books on passenger ships and is an acknowledged world expert on the subject. Told with affection, this nostalgic insight into the world of passenger-cargo ships brings to life, in full colour, the magnificent ships and passengers from the golden age of interoceanic travel.

Information

Author:	William H. Miller
Details:	96 pages, 22.5 x 25 cm / 8.9 x 9.8 in, paperback
Illustrations:	100 b&w and 56 colour photos
Publisher:	The History Press Ltd (GB, 2016)
ISBN:	9780750965088

Megaschiffe - Giganten zur See - Die grössten Schiffe der Welt

Ships with 24 000 standard containers - that's what experts were predicting for 2020. Such superlative designs place the highest demands on shipbuilding. The engine of a ship for 14 000 containers alone is as big as two single-family homes and has an output of around 102 000 hp.
But other types of ships are also getting bigger, almost always with the aim of increasing profitability.

From cruise ships to container ships to icebreakers and aircraft carriers: The book provides an insight into the world of modern megaships and provides an overview of the largest machines that sail the oceans.

Information

Author:	Horst W. Laumanns
Details:	192 pages, 24 x 30.5 cm / 9 x 12 in, hardback
Illustrations:	210 b&w and colour photos
Publisher:	Pietsch Verlag (D, 2019)
ISBN:	9783613508927