Results by title

The Van Speijk class frigates were equipped with Dutch electronics/sensors. The British Leander design was chosen to enable rapid construction to replace elderly escorts for ASW duties and NATO patrol. The ships were thoroughly modernised in the late 1970s. Between 1986-1990 all six were transferred to the Indonesian Navy.

Trapped in the Far East by the over-run of the Netherlands and by the occupancy of the Netherlands East Indies, Tromp's destiny lay in the Indian Ocean and Pacific onslaughts. The ship became one of the highest decorated Dutch warships of World War II. Often referred to as 'The Ghost Ship', the crew preferred to call her 'The Lucky Ship', since she was no less than five times claimed to be sunk.

The ships of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class were designed in the United States in the mid-1970’s as general-purpose escort vessels. They were inexpensive enough to be bought in large quantities and replace older ships. Meant to protect amphibious landing forces, supply and replenishment groups, and merchant convoys from submarines, they also became part of battleship-centric groups and aircraft battle/strike groups.

Protected cruiser (Pantserdekschip) HNLMS Gelderland was a Holland-class cruiser of the Royal Netherlands Navy. This class, of six ships, was considered a modest, but well thought-out design. At a speed of 10 knots the radius of action would have been 8000 miles, while the two triple expansion engines could generate a maximum speed of 19,5 knots.

HMCS Haida was a destroyer of the Tribal-class serving in the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) from 1943-1963. During World War II, Haida sank more enemy surface tonnage than any other Canadian warship. In the Korean War the ship did two tours of duty.

Nowadays she is the only surviving Tribal-class destroyer out of 27 units that were constructed between 1937-1945 for the Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy.

On September 16, 1990, the tanker ship Jupiter exploded while unloading gasoline at a Bay City pier on the Saginaw River. The blast killed one worker, injured eleven others, and triggered what the U.S. Coast Guard later described as an unprecedented crisis on the Great Lakes. For weeks, the disaster commanded national attention as officials worked to contain the damage and investigate the cause. Then, like so many industrial accidents, the story faded from public memory.

When the River Burned tells the story of this overlooked chapter in Great Lakes maritime history. Drawing on newspaper archives, Coast Guard investigations, and eyewitness accounts, Joey Oliver reconstructs how a series of small oversights—in equipment, procedure, and human judgment—aligned to produce catastrophe. 

The book places the Jupiter explosion within a broader history of the Saginaw River, tracing its evolution into a vital artery of Michigan industry. Oliver examines the fragile interdependence of ships, piers, and river traffic, revealing how disasters emerge not from single causes but from the breakdown of complex systems. When the River Burned is not only the account of a deadly tanker explosion; it is a reflection on what caused it, on the safety changes that followed, and on changes that never came.

Take to the sea on this maritime archaeological exploration of nineteenth-century American whaling ships

American whaleships of the early nineteenth century were more than ocean-going vessels—they were complex workplaces, designed for long-term voyages, round-the-clock labor, and the large-scale extraction of marine resources. In Wrecked on the Reef, maritime archaeologist Jason T. Raupp presents a pioneering study of these ships as mobile production platforms, rooted in the logic of industrial capitalism operating far from land.

Drawing on shipwreck sites from the central Pacific region, Raupp offers a rare archaeological look at everyday life aboard nineteenth-century whaling vessels during the so-called “Golden Age” of whaling. He examines the tools used to hunt and process whales, the strict labor hierarchies onboard, and the physical evidence of diverse, often vulnerable crews who lived and worked under demanding conditions. By combining maritime and industrial archaeology, Raupp reveals how these ships functioned not just as transportation, but as full-scale factories at sea.

Chapters trace the rise of Pacific whaling, the importance of Hawaii as a supply and repair hub, the design and mechanics of whaleships, and the dangerous work crews performed in extreme isolation. Raupp shows how these ships were not only technological marvels of their time, but also part of a much larger system of labor, risk, and ocean-based resource extraction that fueled American expansion into the Pacific.

By exploring whaleships as floating work sites, Raupp offers readers a deeper understanding of maritime labor, capitalism, and imperialism in the nineteenth century. Wrecked on the Reef charts a new course in the study of labor and landscape at sea, providing significant contributions to maritime archaeology, industrial history, and environmental humanities.

Wrecked links the story of America’s most infamous shipwreck to the story of an even larger disaster—the wreck of the American industrial economy. When the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, more was lost than the ship and the twenty-nine lives on board. The disaster was a human tragedy as well as an indictment of the American industrial policies that eventually cost the nation thousands of jobs and marooned hundreds of communities. Written with a passionate yet factually grounded intensity, Wrecked shows that the reasons for the decline of industrial manufacturing in the upper Midwest are linked to why the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, and to the legal turmoil that followed for the victims’ families. The book conveys the sense of loss that still is felt by those affected, along with the outrage over the disappearance of manufacturing jobs and the inadequate maintenance and legal maneuvering over liability for the sinking of the ship. What follows is a fascinating critique of what went wrong and why.