Customer Reviews

Wooden Ship-Building

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This edition is scanned from the original edition. The original consisted largely of drawings which are referred to by the text. In the process of scanning, every single drawing was reduced to computer gibberish (e.g. 000!!00000). There are no pictures and the text is impossible to understand without them. Look for an older copy, one with a ship ship on the cover. If you buy this version your money will be completely wasted.

I completeley disagree with the previous review. I am speaking as a professional engineer, naval architect and a designer and builder of historic wooden ships. Perhaps it's an interesting historical reference, but that's about it. It's simply a pastiche...a picture of the USS Constitution, followed by concrete ship, then a large steam yacht, then...the battleship USS North Carolina "which mounts 10 inch guns...". As far as gaining any real knowledge about how to build a wooden ship...frankly no. The book does describe (to some degree) the large, sawn frame construction of late 19th early 20th century North American bulk carriers; however, any insights derived from it would be false. Did any of the large ships built in this way have an effective working life of more than 10 years? Are any still floating? In spite of the sister keelsons, stacked up rider keelsons, trussed keelsons, the strapping and clever keel joints, none of these vessels lasted to the present time...what does that say about the methods contained therein?

Desmond's book might be fun to look through on a rainy night, but really not even worth the bandwidth to download it. Somewhat better for actual wooden ship construction is H. Cole Estep's "How Wooden Ships are Built", or Van Gaasbeek's "A Practical Course in Wooden Boat and Ship Building".

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the construction of wooden ships. First published in 1909, this book is extremely detailed, and is loaded with ship plans, construction specifications, and technical information.

Subjects covered include types of woods, ship joinery, rigging, and much more. There are numerious charts of technical information pertaining to the wide range of materials needed in wooden ship construction.

Although this book was not written as a history of wooden ship building, it certainly gives insight to the industry as it once existed.