Ship and boat parts?

[Shipwreckscanada]

I'm looking for a good book with a lot of detailed Illustrations on ship and boat parts. I think this will help me to identify what I am looking at when I dive a wreck.

Does anyone have a good suggestion for a book or a website. I prefer a book.

 

[covediver]

The Visual Dictionary of Ships and Sailing by Eyewitness Visual Dictionaries is a good basic start. Lots more in that book than meets the eye on first glance. I used it extensively as a first reference when I was a maritime historian.

 

[Shipwreckscanada]

The Visual Dictionary of Ships and Sailing by Eyewitness Visual Dictionaries is a good basic start. Lots more in that book than meets the eye on first glance. I used it extensively as a first reference when I was a maritime historian.

Thank you very much Covediver for your suggestion. The local library is closed until Tuesday, but on their web site, they list the book as available. I will look at it and if it is what I am looking for I will purchase the book. I was hoping for more suggestion,maybe I should have made the post in the "Underwater Treasures" section of this forum. As an historian, you might agree with me.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

This is an interesting question. I was noodling around in my head, but most of the books that came to mind are... well they are *more* than what you are looking for. That is, they may have sketches of boats and label the various parts, but that is 1/100th of the book -- with more on sailing, navigation/pilotage, line handling, etc.

If you're looking at the library, you might check out Royce's Sailing Illustrated. It's just a small paperback, but it's full of line drawings. I can't remember at the moment if it would have a larger drawing such as you are looking for. Once you're in that section you may see other books that suit your purpose better.

Blue Sparkle

PS: Oh, I just came up with another idea; let me have a look and I'll post back

Okay, here is something you might find enjoyable and useful. It's called "Illustrated Nautical Dictionary," by Howard Patterson. It's *very* detailed, and it may be too old-fashioned (published 1891, so maybe too much about sailing rigs and not enough about modern ships for what you want). That said, many vessel parts are either still similar, or would be recognizable even if slightly different nowadays. Much nautical terminology has stayed pretty traditional, and many basic parts will still go by the same names, even on modern vessels.

Also, some of the detailed illustrations (capstan, chain, anchors, various deck hardware) apply to more modern vessels, and might prove useful if you see objects that are near a wreck but perhaps not in their original location. I guess it depends on how much detailed/history interests you, vs. just a simple drawing of a modern vessel (which could probably be found via Google images, although I know the feeling of preferring a book).

This book is available free online at archive.org. From the main page you can read it online, or download it in numerous formats (see box at upper left once you get to the main page). Then, if you liked it, you could look for a paper copy.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030750776

(For those so inclined, archive.org has quite a few nifty old sailing books, and some vintage diving ones too.)

 

[covediver]

Thank you very much Covediver for your suggestion. The local library is closed until Tuesday, but on their web site, they list the book as available. I will look at it and if it is what I am looking for I will purchase the book. I was hoping for more suggestion,maybe I should have made the post in the "Underwater Treasures" section of this forum. As an historian, you might agree with me.

I noticed you are from the St. lawrence/Great Lakes area. Are you specifically looking for references on Great Lakes vessels, such as the steamers that seemed ubiquitous to the great lakes trade and seem to be plentiful on the lake bottoms. My great grandfather's ship sank at least three times before being sold Canadian and scrapped in 1921.
I second what "blue sparkle" observed, even the visual dictionary contains a lot of stuff on navigation and equipment.
While posting in the underwater treasures might be useful, I know the scubaboard monitors usually move or combine cross postiongs.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

I noticed you are from the St. lawrence/Great Lakes area. Are you specifically looking for references on Great Lakes vessels, such as the steamers that seemed ubiquitous to the great lakes trade and seem to be plentiful on the lake bottoms.

Oh good point. I'm from the Great Lakes but hadn't picked up on that. I don't know of any diagrams specifically, but if you like ships/lakers, you might enjoy looking at this website anyway:

Welcome to Great Lakes Shipping and Boatwatching

Great Lakes and Seaway Shipping - BoatNerd.Com

The funny thing is, I feel like I can visualize just the sort of thing you're looking for, but of course now I can't think where I saw it. So of course it's continuing to bang around in my brain

I'm thinking of something like this, but more detailed, with more different views, and (obviously) quite a bit more modern (although many parts are still the same or similar on modern vessels).




Maybe it's time to rummage around in the book boxes ... I think the diagrams I'm remembering might have been in a textbook... (I never mind an excuse to look through old books )

 

[Shipwreckscanada]

You are all the greatest, thank you so much for the research you put into my question.

I can also see that I need to put more information into my questions. English is not my first language and I seem to cut corners when I write, I should not to this.

Your book suggestions and websites are great. As for the pdf file "cu31924030750776.pdf," "Illustrated NauticalDictionary," by Howard Patterson. I must say that this is exactly what I was looking for. I found it for sale at Chapters for only $25.00.

About one year ago, I did buy abook called "SHIP The Epic Story of Maritime Adventure," by Brian Lavery, published by Smithsonian.It is very illustrated, but does not go into details like the Illustrated Nautical Dictionary.

 

[Gilldiver]

What you are getting in to is the area that few wreck divers know and no wreck diving course that I have heard about ever get into - Just what am I looking at when I dive a wreck?

You really have to break the question into Sailing ships and steam/motor ships.

For sailing ships, the best book I have ever come across is "The Wreck Diver's Guide to Sailing Ship Artifacts of the 19th Century" published by the Underwater Archaeological Society of British Columbia. It has a good number of photos of artifacts on the bottom and land so you can start to figure out what things looked like on a ship and underwater.

For steam/motor ship, there aren't many similar books, but I do recommend some of the Conway "History of the Ship" books like "The Advent of STEAM; The Merchant Steamship before 1900." A very good book is by Denis Griffiths "Steam at Sea; Two Centuries of Steam Powered Ships."

Many/most of these books are out of print but keep an eye out for them on the used book web sites like Bookfinder.

On the web you can also find digital copes of various engineering journals such as "International Marine Engineering," mostly on Google books. I find that, in the period 1880-1920, some of the photos and articles are of interest, but some of the most valuable information are the drawings of various machines and machinery that are in the advertisements. With these adds, you get a good rendition of what the equipment looked like and what it did.

Once you put it all together you may find that you will start to read the wrecks, as in "If that is here, than right over here should be ....."

If you really want to get into it, see if you can find underwater archaeology courses given by the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society (MAHS) in the US Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society

or

The Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) NAS home page

The courses given by dive shops, NAUI, PADI, etc. are just about useless, unless the instructor has a very good background in marine ship designs and changes in the technology over time.

Pete Johnson

 

[Shipwreckscanada]

Thanks for your advice. I totally agree with your comment "nowreck diving course that I have heard about ever get into - Just what am I looking at when I dive a wreck?"

I dived on nine local shipwrecks in the last two years and feel as if I missed the true value of what I was looking at.

By the way, I already took the NAS introduction and level one course. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is curious about UW archaeology.

 

[Gilldiver]

By the way, I already took the NAS introduction and level one course. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is curious about UW archaeology.

Take the level II and III courses and start teaching.

One thing you can do is to hang out with some marine survey guys and see if they will take you along for inspections on wooden boats or even ships. These guys know what they are looking at, and looking for, and can lay your hands on stuff that many archaeologists only read about.