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65 books match the query 'Ships & Boats' and 13 start with t

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The Cedarville Conspiracy

L. Stephen Cox

University of Michigan Press, 2005

On the morning of May 7, 1965, the American freighter Cedarville collided with the Norwegian vessel Topdalsfjord in heavy fog in the Straits of Mackinac. Ultimately, ten crew members of the Cedarville died and a legal battle ensued implicating U.S. Steel---the company that owned the Cedarville---in the chain of events leading to the tragedy.

The Cedarville Conspiracy is the story of that doomed ship and its crew. It is also the first Great Lakes history to expose the heroism, villainy, courage, and confusion surrounding the Cedarville disaster.

In atmospheric, cinematic style, L. Stephen Cox's gripping page-turner dramatizes the events surrounding the collision between the Norwegian and American freighters. As the mortally wounded Cedarville began to list and sink, U.S. Steel refused to allow the crew to escape to safety, while the captain secretly donned his life jacket and abandoned the sinking ship. Ten seamen died in the frigid waters that morning as the captain and survivors swam to safety.

Researching the story, author L. Stephen Cox interviewed the surviving crew and their rescuers and attorneys, examined more than 20,000 pages of Coast Guard reports, and discovered deposition transcripts and other documentary evidence that detailed the deterioration of the ship, the captain's disregard of Great Lakes navigational rules, the company's participation in the decision to confine the men aboard the sinking vessel, and the subsequent efforts by U.S. Steel to manipulate the evidence.

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The Echoes of L'Arbre Croche

Donald A. Johnston

University of Michigan Press, 2009

The year is 1915, and Benjamin Corvet, founder of the ship-owning firm Corvet, Sherrill and Spearman, suddenly disappears, sparking events and questions that baffle even those who are close to him.

Constance Sherrill, an attractive, sheltered young woman, feels strangely responsible for what may have happened to him---her father's best friend and coworker. Alan Conrad arrives in Chicago searching for his identity and an unknown benefactor and is swept into a maelstrom of mystery and intrigue that tests his intelligence and athleticism to the fullest. Henry Spearman, the firm's junior partner, is the most eligible bachelor along Chicago's Lake Shore Drive as a result of his catapult from ships' ranks to successful owner.

When a ship sinks off the coast of Beaver Island in Michigan, the intertwining lives of these characters unlock the mystery of the disappearance of another ship twenty years earlier, in a riveting whodunit set on the stormy waters of the Great Lakes.

Donald A. Johnston was born and raised in Detroit, served in World War II as a U.S. Navy Reserve officer, and was decorated for service in the Philippines and in the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. His career includes forty years in the insurance business. An ardent sailing enthusiast, he has cruised the Great Lakes extensively and has sailed winners in class boats and in offshore competition.

Jacket photograph © Yuriz / iStockphoto.com

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The Great Lakes Ships of Frank E. Kirby

America's Greatest Naval Architect

Richard Gebhart

Michigan State University Press, 2026

This study of the legendary Michigan shipbuilder Frank E. Kirby examines his life and the accomplishments that earned him national esteem and international fame. Kirby was involved in the design and build of nearly one hundred vessels, many of which sailed the Great Lakes region. He is best known for designing the paddle steamer Tashmoo and two boats that ferried visitors to Boblo Island in the Detroit River for decades, Columbia and Ste. Claire. Though only three of his vessels remain, none of them operational, hundreds of thousands of Michiganders who are still alive today have been carried by Kirby vessels. Told through stories found in the Detroit Free Press, historical archives, family documents, an interview conducted by his daughter-in-law Dorothy Clement Kirby in 1926, and keepsakes, Richard Gebhart brings to life the story of one of the most prolific Great Lakes shipbuilders of the time.

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The Longest Voyage

Circumnavigators in the Age of Discovery

Robert Silverberg

Ohio University Press, 1997

From the intense and brooding Magellan and the glamorous and dashing Sir Francis Drake; to Thomas Cavendish, who set off to plunder Spain’s American gold and the Dutch circumnavigators, whose numbers included pirates as well as explorers and merchants,  Robert Silverberg  captures the adventures and seafaring exploits of a bygone era.

Over the course of a century, European circumnavigators in small ships charted the coast of the New World and explored the Pacific Ocean. Characterized by fierce nationalism, competitiveness, and bloodshed, The Longest Voyage: Circumnavigators in the Age of Discovery  captures the drama, danger, and personalities in the colorful story of the first voyages around the world. These accounts begin with Magellan’s unprecedented 1519–22 circumnavigation, providing an immediate, exciting, and intimate glimpse into that historic venture. The story includes frequent threats of mutiny; the nearly unendurable extremes of heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and fatigue; the fear, tedium, and moments of despair; the discoveries of exotic new peoples and strange new lands; and, finally, Magellan’s own dramatic death during a fanatical attempt to convert native Philippine islanders to Christianity.

Capturing the total context of political climate and historical change that made the Age of Discovery one of excitement and drama, Silverberg brings a motley crew of early ocean explorers vividly to life.

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The Miracle of the Kent

A Tale of Courage, Faith, and Fire

Nicholas Tracy

Westholme Publishing, 2008

An Extraordinary Rescue and One of the Greatest Human Interest Stories of All Time

“A naturally gripping adventure tale.”—Publishers Weekly
“Powerful and intensely focused.”—Booklist
“Tracy's satisfying narrative constitutes the first modern account. A finely detailed maritime history.”—Kirkus Reviews

In 1825, the Kent, an East Indiaman, set sail from England for India with a crew and nearly 600 men, women, and children on board. North of Spain, the ship was slammed by a ferocious gale, and while a sailor was inspecting the hold for damage, his lantern ignited a cask of spirits. A fire quickly erupted, and even with the desperate expedient of opening hatches and flooding the ship, the fire burned out of control. As night wore on, the ship became an inferno, with the flames moving toward stores of gunpowder. At this point, everyone on board knew that they would perish, and they began preparing for their ghastly deaths. Despite the raging tempest a sailor climbed one last time to the top of the Kent’s mainmast and—miraculously—a sail was sighted on the horizon. It was the Cambria, a small brig on its way to Mexico. The Cambriaspied the burning Kentand through determination and dogged seamanship in towering seas, the little brig closed the doomed vessel. Launching their boats, the Kent’s and Cambria’s crews were able to transfer nearly all of the children, women, and men to the brig and pull away before the Kent exploded. Dangerously overloaded, the Cambriamade the Cornish coast three days later.
In The Miracle of the Kent: A Tale of Courage, Faith, and Fire, award-winning historian Nicholas Tracy reconstructs this extraordinary tale through records left by the participants, revealing how those aboard the Kent faced their deaths, and their reactions to being offered a second chance. The story of the Kentis both a page-turning adventure and an inspirational homage to the capacity of the human spirit.

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The UP Saga

Susan M. Martin

National University of Singapore Press, 2003

Histories of the plantations sector in Malaysia have largely focused on the rubber industry and on the rise and fall of big British-owned colonial enterprises. But since independence, the sector has entered a new phase of spectacular growth founded on the oil palm. This volume offers a radically different history of a firm which spans both eras. The fascinating story of United Plantations Berhad (UP) highlights a Scandinavian-founded firm that evolved along quite different lines from the normal models of British imperial business. Tracing the company’s origins before the First World War, it describes the crisis years of economic depression and Japanese occupation then on to the years of spectacular growth which has lasted since the time of the Emergency and Merdeka right up to the present day. The success of this firm - based not just on an extraordinary combination of agricultural, engineering and marketing innovation but also on the company’s engagement and commitment to its local environment - provides a glowing example of a partnership between Europeans and Asians which has benefited both sides.

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To Your Posts!

Fort Meigs in the War of 1812 through the Voices of Those Who Fought There

Larry L. Nelson

Michigan State University Press, 2025

To Your Posts! Fort Meigs in the War of 1812 through the Voices of Those Who Fought There recounts the history of Fort Meigs, a U.S. military garrison built on the outermost reaches of Ohio’s northwestern frontier during the War of 1812. Troops commanded by William Henry Harrison erected the fort in the late winter and early spring of 1813. Built at the foot of the Maumee River Rapids, the site of present-day Perrysburg in Wood County, the post successfully withstood two determined sieges by allied British, Canadian, and Native forces later that year. Those victories, resulting in the garrison’s continued American occupation throughout 1815, contributed significantly to the United States’ eventual successes in the Detroit Theater at the end of the war. Using numerous primary sources including letters, diaries, and other documents from the period, many published here for the first time, To Your Posts! tells the story of Fort Meigs through the voices of those who served at the post during the War of 1812.

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Too Much Sea for Their Decks

Shipwrecks of Minnesota's North Shore and Isle Royale

Michael Schumacher

University of Minnesota Press, 2023

Shipwreck stories from along Minnesota’s north shore of Lake Superior and Isle Royale

Against the backdrop of the extraordinary history of Great Lakes shipping, Too Much Sea for Their Decks chronicles shipwrecked schooners, wooden freighters, early steel-hulled steamers, whalebacks, and bulk carriers—some well-known, some unknown or forgotten—all lost in the frigid waters of Lake Superior.

Included are compelling accounts of vessels destined for infamy, such as that of the Stranger, a slender wooden schooner swallowed by the lake in 1875, the sailors’ bodies never recovered nor the wreckage ever found; an account of the whaleback Wilson, rammed by a large commercial freighter in broad daylight and in calm seas, sinking before many on board could escape; and the mysterious loss of the Kamloops, a package freighter that went down in a storm and whose sailors were found on the Isle Royale the following spring, having escaped the wreck only to die of exposure on the island. Then there is the ill-fated Steinbrenner, plagued by bad luck from the time of her construction, when she was nearly destroyed by fire, to her eventual (and tragic) sinking in 1953. These tales and more represent loss of life and property—and are haunting stories of brave and heroic crews.

Arranged chronologically and presented in three sections covering Minnesota's North Shore, Isle Royale, and the three biggest storms in Minnesota’s Great Lakes history (the 1905 Mataafa storm, the 1913 hurricane on the lakes, and the 1940 Armistice Day storm), each shipwreck documented within these pages provides a piece to the history of shipping on Lake Superior.

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