Transport (163)

Triumph and Tribulation

ISBN: 9781909461420

Author: H. W. Tilman    Publisher: Lodestar Books

No ship should be without Tabasco sauce. Experience is said to be the name men give to their mistakes and of the experience I gained in Spitzbergen that may wel...


No ship should be without Tabasco sauce. Experience is said to be the name men give to their mistakes and of the experience I gained in Spitzbergen that may well be true. The circumnavigation of Spitzbergen is the first of three voyages described in HW ‘Bill’ Tilman’s fifteenth and final book, a remarkable example of his ability to triumph when supported by a crew game for all challenges. The 1974 voyage of the pilot cutter Baroque takes Tilman to his furthest north; the highest latitude of any of his travels in the northern or southern hemisphere. The account of this achievement makes compelling reading, the crew pulling together to avert potential disaster from a navigational misjudgement. A younger, less experienced crew join Tilman in 1975, this time heading north along Greenland’s west coast until a break in the boom necessitates the abandonment of the objective and an early return. “That one can never be quite confident of reaching any of the places I aim at may be part of their charm, and failure is at least an excuse for making another voyage.” The following year proves to be Tilman’s last voyage in his own boat, his account beginning with a dry nod to his artillery background: “As I begin to describe this voyage, the discrepancy between the target and the fall of shot provokes a wry smile.” Tilman never expected crews to pay, covering all the costs of his voyages personally. He therefore held the quite reasonable view that his crew would pull their weight, show loyalty to the ship and take the rough with the smooth. Sadly, the crew in 1976 fell far short of that expectation, forcing several changes of plan and eventually obliging Tilman to leave Baroque in Iceland. Not for the first time in Tilman’s remarkable 140,000 miles of voyaging is he moved to quote Conrad: “Ships are all right, it’s the men in them.” Tilman set a high standard and led by example; where his companions rose to the challenge, as they did in the majority of his expeditions, the results were often remarkable. Triumph and Tribulation closes this newly extended edition of his literary legacy; a fine testament to a remarkable life.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 202


Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm


Publication Date: 01-06-2017


$36.00
Ice with Everything

ISBN: 9781909461406

Author: H. W. Tilman    Publisher: Lodestar Books

In climbing mountains or sailing the seas one often has to settle for less than one hoped. ‘For most men, as Epicurus has remarked, rest is stagnation and act...


In climbing mountains or sailing the seas one often has to settle for less than one hoped. ‘For most men, as Epicurus has remarked, rest is stagnation and activity madness. Mad or not, the activity that I have been pursuing for the last twenty years takes the form of voyages to remote, mountainous regions.’ HW ‘Bill’ Tilman’s fourteenth book describes three more of those voyages, ‘the first comparatively humdrum, the second totally disastrous, and the third exceedingly troublesome’. The first voyage describes Tilman’s 1971 attempt to reach East Greenland’s remote and mountainous Scoresby Sound. The largest fjord system in the world was named after the Whitby whaling captain, William Scoresby, who first charted the coastline in 1822. Scoresby’s two volume Account of the Arctic Regions provided much of the historical inspiration for Tilman’s northern voyages and fuelled his fascination with Scoresby Sound and its unclimbed mountains. His first attempt on Scoresby had already cost him his first boat, Mischief, in 1968. The following year, a ‘polite mutiny’ aboard Sea Breeze had forced him to turn back within sight of the entrance to the Sound. With a good crew aboard in 1971, it was particularly frustrating for Tilman to find the boat blocked once more, this time by impenetrable ice off the entrance to the fjord. He refused to give up; his obsession with Scoresby Sound continued in 1972 and after a series of unfortunate events Sea Breeze ended up between a rock and an ice floe with a failed engine and a disastrous outcome. Safely back home in Wales, the inevitable search for a new boat began. ‘One cannot buy a biggish boat as if buying a piece of soap. The act is almost as irrevocable as marriage and should be given as much thought’. The 1902 Pilot Cutter Baroque, after not inconsiderable expense, proved equal to the challenge after Tilman’s first troublesome voyage in her to West Greenland in 1973.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 160


Dimensions: 156 x 260 mm


Publication Date: 06-04-2017


Nepal Himalaya

ISBN: 9781909461383

Author: H. W. Tilman    Publisher: Lodestar Books

The most mountainous of a singularly mountainous country. Throughout 1949 and 1950 H.W. ‘Bill’ Tilman mounted pioneering expeditions to Nepal and its Himala...


The most mountainous of a singularly mountainous country. Throughout 1949 and 1950 H.W. ‘Bill’ Tilman mounted pioneering expeditions to Nepal and its Himalayan mountains, taking advantage of some of the first access to the country for Western travellers in the 20th century. Tilman and his party—including a certain Tenzing Norgay—trekked into the Kathmandu Valley and on to the Langtang region, where the highs and lows began. They first explored the Ganesh Himal, before moving on to the Jugal Himal and the following season embarking on an ambitious trip to Annapurna and Everest. Manaslu was their first objective, but left to ‘better men’, and Annapurna IV very nearly climbed instead but for bad weather which dogged the whole expedition. Needless to say, Tilman was leading some very lightweight expeditions into some seriously heavyweight mountains. After the Annapurna adventure Tilman headed to Everest with—among others—Dr Charles Houston. Approaching from the delights of Namche Bazaar, the party made progress up the flanks of Pumori to gaze as best they could into the Western Cwm, and at the South Col and South-East Ridge approach to the summit of Everest. His observations were both optimistic and pessimistic: ‘One cannot write off the south side as impossible until the approach from the head of the West Cwm to this remarkably airy col has been seen.’ But then of the West Cwm: ‘A trench overhung by these two tremendous walls might easily become a grave for any party which pitched its camp there.’ Nepal Himalaya presents Tilman’s favourite sketches, encounters with endless yetis, trouble with the porters, his obsessive relationship with alcohol and issues with the food. And so Tilman departs Nepal for the last time proper with these retiring words: ‘If a man feels he is failing to achieve this stern standard he should perhaps withdraw from a field of such high endeavour as the Himalaya.’


Bind: paperback


Pages: 280


Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm


Publication Date: 06-04-2017


$36.00
In Mischiefs Wake

ISBN: 9781909461369

Author: H. W. Tilman    Publisher: Lodestar Books

I felt like one who had first betrayed and then deserted a stricken friend; a friend with whom for the past fourteen years I had spent more time at sea than on ...


I felt like one who had first betrayed and then deserted a stricken friend; a friend with whom for the past fourteen years I had spent more time at sea than on land, and who, when not at sea, had seldom been out of my thoughts. The first of the three voyages described in In Mischief’s Wake gives H.W. ‘Bill’ Tilman’s account of the final voyage and loss of Mischief, the Bristol Channel pilot cutter in which he had sailed over 100,000 miles to high latitudes in both Arctic and Antarctic waters. Back home, refusing to accept defeat and going against the advice of his surveyor, he takes ownership of Sea Breeze, built in 1899; ‘a bit long in the tooth, but no more so, in fact a year less, than her prospective owner’. After extensive remedial work, his first attempt at departure had to be cut short when the crew ‘enjoyed a view of the Isle of Wight between two of the waterline planks’. After yet more expense, Sea Breeze made landfall in Iceland before heading north toward the East Greenland coast in good shape and well stocked with supplies. A mere forty miles from the entrance to Scoresby Sound, Tilman’s long-sought-after objective, ‘a polite mutiny’ forced him to abandon the voyage and head home. The following year, with a crew game for all challenges, a series of adventures on the west coast of Greenland gave Tilman a voyage he considered ‘certainly the happiest’, in a boat which was proving to be a worthy successor to his beloved Mischief.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 172


Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm


Publication Date: 26-01-2017


$36.00
Sail and Oar

ISBN: 9781907206238

Author: Ernest Dade    Publisher: Lodestar Books

No maritime library will be complete without a copy of this volume on its shelves, for the Yorkshire fishing coble and the Yorkshire smack of the past century w...


No maritime library will be complete without a copy of this volume on its shelves, for the Yorkshire fishing coble and the Yorkshire smack of the past century were among the finest examples of English sea-going craft ever devised, and none more fitted for the rugged coast to which they belonged or for the stormy seas on which they used to sail. —Peter F. Anson, 1933 First published in 1933, this book of a hundred of Ernest Dade’s delightful pen and ink sketches of the North Sea fishing fleet in the latter part of the nineteenth century is not only a significant artistic achievement, but also an invaluable historical record. Observed either from his own boat or from onboard the fishing boats themselves, the drawings have an immediacy rare in work of this kind—epitomized by the sketch on page 37 where it may not be too fanciful to imagine that the yawl in the foreground is Dade sailing out to meet the returning fishing fleet with pen and pad to hand. Not only do the sketches portray the boats and their gear accurately and in great detail, but they also show the fishermen at their work both offshore and inshore from most of the fishing centres of the Yorkshire coast. The facility of Dade’s pen work can only be admired and most certainly enjoyed. These pictures show all this and are true in every way. Mr. Ernest Dade lived the life, knew the men, and sailed in the various craft he draws so well. It is a record of things passed away. —Frank Wheeler, Fisherman, 1932 This new edition has an illustrated Postscript on the restored 40ft Bridlington Sailing Coble Three Brothers.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 224


Dimensions: 156 x 216 mm


Publication Date: 27-11-2013


$36.00
Remembering the Boats

ISBN: 9781907206474

Author: Gloria Wilson    Publisher: Lodestar Books

Fishing boats, particularly those along the eastern seaboard of Britain, from Whitby northwards, have always been fundamental to my existence writes Gloria Wils...


Fishing boats, particularly those along the eastern seaboard of Britain, from Whitby northwards, have always been fundamental to my existence writes Gloria Wilson in her Introduction. … I touch upon my own story, give some account of how I have arrived at the happy and somewhat unconformable circumstance of being a writer and illustrator within the commercial fishing and boat building communities. Nevertheless, the boats themselves form the mainstay, the connective narrative throughout the book… I have chosen those which, for me, are the most likeable and pleasing, predominantly the classic, cruiser-sterned wooden-hulled seine netters and dual-purpose craft which are splendid sea boats and have such beautiful hull forms. Gloria Wilson was born in Surrey but spent her childhood in the Yorkshire fishing village of Staithes. She studied at Durham University under Victor Pasmore and Kenneth Rowntree and gained a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. This is her eleventh book on fishing craft of the British Isles, and she has written extensively for maritime journals including Classic Boat, Fishing News, and Maritime Life and Traditions. Gloria lived in Scotland for some years, but now lives and works in the north-east of England.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 140


Dimensions: 216 x 216 mm


Publication Date: 16-10-2019


$49.99
M3 Medium Tank

ISBN: 9780764361418

Author: David Doyle    Publisher: Schiffer Books

The M3 Lee was America's first mass-produced combat tank. Its unusual configuration of hull-mounted 75 mm gun and turret-mounted 37 mm cannon was a result of th...


The M3 Lee was America's first mass-produced combat tank. Its unusual configuration of hull-mounted 75 mm gun and turret-mounted 37 mm cannon was a result of the rush to get the vehicle in production following Nazi Germany's rapid advances in Europe. Following heavy British tank losses in France, the Commonwealth turned to the US to bolster their tank stocks, and the M3 was adapted, through the use of a different turret style, to fill this need. Later, as more-advanced tanks became available, notably the M4 Sherman, the M3s were adapted to fill other roles. This book chronicles the development and use of these vehicles from concept to combat. Through dozens of archival photos, many never before published, as well as detailed photographs of some of the finest existent examples of surviving vehicles, these iconic armored fighting vehicles are explored, and their history is explained.


Bind: hardback


Pages: 112


Dimensions: 229 x 229 mm


Publication Date: 30-04-2021


Tags: April 2021   Military   History   Transport
$45.00
Ford M8 and M20 : The US Army's Standard Armored Car of WWII

ISBN: 9780764361432

Author: David Doyle    Publisher: Schiffer Books

Developed to provide the US military with a fast-moving reconnaissance vehicle sufficiently armed to knock out WWII-era armored vehicles. The M8 Armored Car and...


Developed to provide the US military with a fast-moving reconnaissance vehicle sufficiently armed to knock out WWII-era armored vehicles. The M8 Armored Car and its sibling, the M20 Armored Utility Vehicles, were the most widely used armored vehicles built by Ford. These vehicles saw use with the US Army as well as Allied nations during WWII and well into the 1960s. This book chronicles the development and use of the vehicle from concept to combat. Through dozens of archival photos, many never before published, as well as detailed photographs of some of the finest existent examples of these vehicles, this iconic tank is explored, and its history is explained.


Bind: hardback


Pages: 128


Dimensions: 229 x 229 mm


Publication Date: 30-04-2021


Tags: April 2021   History   Military   Transport
$45.00
Airbus A300/310

ISBN: 9780764361395

Author: Wolfgang Borgmann    Publisher: Schiffer Books

By producing the A300-the first twin-jet, wide-body airliner in the world-the European Airbus consortium succeeded in joining the league of leading aircraft mak...


By producing the A300-the first twin-jet, wide-body airliner in the world-the European Airbus consortium succeeded in joining the league of leading aircraft makers. The path was both rocky and exciting. Filled with detailed text, including historical, technological, and flight information, as well as colorful photos, this volume provides a fascinating insight into the history of commercial aviation. The first aircraft designed, built, and sold by Airbus, the A300 airliner debuted in 1974 with Air France and was in constant service throughout the world. Among the many past and present airlines flying the A300/310 are Air Hong Kong, Air France, Air India, American, China Airlines, Eastern, EgyptAir, FedEx, Finnair, Iberia, Korean Air, Pan Am, SAS, UPS, and many others. Though it is no longer produced, examples of the aircraft still fly today.


Bind: hardback


Pages: 144


Dimensions: 229 x 229 mm


Publication Date: 30-04-2021


Tags: April 2021   History   Transport
$69.99
Boeing 737

ISBN: 9780764361388

Author: Wolfgang Borgmann    Publisher: Schiffer Books

The Boeing 737 is undoubtedly one of the best known of all passenger aircraft and has been built in greater numbers than any other commercial aircraft in the wo...


The Boeing 737 is undoubtedly one of the best known of all passenger aircraft and has been built in greater numbers than any other commercial aircraft in the world. There are few airline passengers of the last decade who have not yet flown on one of these aircraft. More than 10,000 examples have been built in all its variants-an unbelievably high number for an airliner. This book describes the aircraft's early development-from the first concept drawings in the early 1960s to construction, testing, and first flights-to the present, with exciting photos, drawings, and information from the Boeing company archives. From the 737-100 through to today's 737MAX, all versions are covered in detail, including its use by many of the world's airlines, including Air France, British Airways, Delta, Easyjet, Lufthansa, SAS, Southwest, and many others.


Bind: hardback


Pages: 144


Dimensions: 229 x 229 mm


Publication Date: 30-04-2021


Tags: April 2021   History   Transport
$69.99
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