From dramatic rescues to coastal catastrophes, a riveting collection of maritime lore from the eastern shore of Long Island.Since the mid-1600s, eastern Long Island's shoals, sandbars, and assorted submerged hazards have caused many an unlucky vessel to become shipwrecked. The frequency of wrecks rose to a grim crescendo during the mid-nineteenth century, as New York and New England peaked as shipping centers.Then came the dawn of the twentieth century and th...

This account of a disaster at sea during World War II is "a powerful and engrossing story of tragedy, survival, and heroism" (Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down) .In the final days of 1944, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey is the Pacific theater's most popular and colorful naval hero. After a string of victories, the "Fighting Admiral" and his thirty-thousand-man Third Fleet are charged with protecting General MacArthur's flank ...

"A fluent, intelligent history...give[s] the reader a feel for the human quirks and harsh demands of life at sea."—New York Times Book ReviewBefore the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military became the most divisive issue facing the new government. The founders—particularly Jefferson, Madison, and Adams—debated fiercely. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect from pirates or drain the treasury an...

The complete and definitive New York Times –bestselling chronicle of the Titanic, including survivors' stories and extensive research separating fact from myth.In just two hours and forty minutes, 1,500 souls were lost at sea when the RMS Titanic succumbed to the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Based on interviews with sixty-three survivors, A Night to Remember tells the story of that fateful night, o...

**"A treasure of a book."—David McCulloughThe harrowing story of a pathbreaking naval expedition that set out to map the entire Pacific Ocean, dwarfing Lewis and Clark with its discoveries, from the New York Times bestselling author of Valiant Ambition and In the Hurricane's Eye.**A New York Times Notable BookAmerica's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea, and no one writes more eloquently about that wa...

Lost at Sea features the incredible stories of eight ships and their passengers, some of which vanished with hardly a trace - or no trace at all. Veteran history and mystery writer A.A.Hoehling explores these previously unexplained maritime mishaps with the skill of a detective seeking to uncover a murderer.

**A Los Angeles Times Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007A Boston Globe Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007Amazon.com Editors pick as one of the 10 best history books of 2007Winner of the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History, given by the North American Society for Oceanic History"The best history of American whaling to come along in a generation." —Nathaniel Philbrick**The epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an in...

There is no dream so large that it can’t fit into a tiny boat… TINKERBELLE tells the real story about a man’s boyhood dream and how he made his dream come true. This is ROBERT MANRY’S inspiring tale of how he became enchanted with the notion of sailing the high seas, and how, years later, he set sail on a voyage that has fascinated sailors, adventurers, and dreamers, ever since. It is the gripping story of his 13½-foot sloop, Tinkerbelle—the smallest boat that had ever crossed the Atlantic...

When the nuclear-powered submarine USS Triton was commissioned in November 1959, its commanding officer, Captain Edward L. Beach, planned a routine shakedown cruise in the North Atlantic. Two weeks before the scheduled cruise, however, Beach was summoned to Washington and told of the immediate necessity to prove the reliability of the Rickover-conceived submarine. His new secret orders were to take the Triton around the world, entirely submerged the total distance. This is Beach's gripping...

Some Nautical Tales covers the adventures and experiences of Captain Wilbur H. Vantine, as he worked his way up from Ordinary Seaman and sailed as Ship Master on tramo freighters in the United States Merchant Marine. Along the way he was able to see the world at a very interesting time in world affairs. During WWII, he served on two ships in the war zones of the southwest Pacific and on another in the North Atlantic to the United Kingdom. He obtained his first command in 1951 at age twenty...

October 2012. A replica of the famous HMS Bounty, an eighteenth-century tall sailing ship, set a collision course with a storm that became the largest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic—a clash that proved to be one of the most unforgettable stories of Superstorm Sandy.The Bounty, crewed by an eclectic team of seafarers and led by highly respected captain Robin Walbridge, departed from Connecticut as Sandy raced north. Walbridge, who...

Hanging on display in the United States Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., is a battered and scratched steel plate, two feet in diameter, edged with more than one hundred little semicircles. For more than eighty years, people have wondered how it came to be there and at the story it could tell.Under Pressure: The Final Voyage of Submarine S-Five is that story. On Monday, August 30, 1920, the S-Five, the newest member of the U.S. Navy's fleet of submarines, departs Bost...