Wooden Tall Ships

La Perouse Circumnavigation of the world from 1778 until 1783
France and England were at war between 1778 and 1783 and as soon as war was over the French wanted to send two frigates on a voyage of exploration and scientific discovery around the world. They chose Jean Francois de Galaup La Perouse to lead the […]

Maritime coastal navigation terms
Archipelago - a sea abounding in islands, or just the group of islands themselves. eg Malay Archipelago.
Atoll. A coral reef ringing a coral island and enclosing a lagoon. Found mainly in the Pacific.
Basin - the area of land drained by a river.
Bay - a curving in the coastline, less indented than a […]

Windward Sailing
The technological development of sailing ships has always been a compromise between demands for speed, cargo carrying capacity, and manoeuvrability. The complexity of the interaction between these qualities and the local boat building traditions and available timbers all throughout the world have created a wide variety of ship designs and types. Some of them […]

For tens of thousands of years, humans have been able to keep themselves floating on boats. The earliest logs, bunches of reeds, or branches could only voyage to where the water currents or the most primitive of paddles could let them. When paddles were first used, it must have become immediately apparent that the wind […]