Nautical Training Ships

An Illustrated History

Phil Carradice

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2009
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• eBook ISBN:
  9781445623771
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Technology & Engineering

For well over a hundred years all around the coast of Britain there were located a series of nautical training ships. Often surplus navy wooden walls, the ships provided a means of educating boys and young men, while preparing them for a lifetime at sea. The more famous of the schools included HMS Conway, initially on the Mersey, and then at Menai; the TS Mercury, at Hamble, Hampshire; the Mars on the Tay, at Dundee; the Vindicatrix at Sharpness Docks on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal; the Worcester on the Thames and the Arethusa at Greenhithe. The Arethusa, converted from a sailing vessel, lasted until 1974 before she was purchased and sailed to America to be restored as a typical sailing vessel of the late nineteenth century. Phil Carradice tells the story of the training ships that helped keep Britain a maritime nation from their foundation to their demise as Britain's once-proud merchant marine declined in the latter years of the twentieth century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• 1: Abandon Ship
• 2: Founding a System
• 3: Reformatory School Ships
• 4: Industrial School Ships
• 5: Charity and Voluntary Training Ships
• 6: Officer Training Schools
• 7: Stone Frigates – Land-based Nautical Schools
• 8: Schools Afloat – and a Few Ashore
• 9: The Senior Service – Royal Naval Schools for Boys
• 10: Fire, Wreck and a Bombing
• 11: Scandal and Disaster, Death, Mutiny and Riot
• 12: The End of the Road
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements