About antique Maritime Prints

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking

John Masefield (1878-1967)

In the widest sense “ship” now means any decked vessel for conveyance by water, as distinguished from an undecked boat; but it is more generally confined to the larger sorts of vessels. In a restricted technical sense, it means a vessel with at least three masts, square rigged; such a vessel is sometimes also distinguished as a full-rigged ship.There are many examples above, showing Ships Rigging 1819, The Victory1834, The Agamemnon 1860,The Royal Yacht 1870, among others.
In the development of shipbuilding, the most important change was the substitution of iron for wood. Formely ships were built of wood; since 1830, however iron has gradually superseded wood. Excepting small fishing and coasting boats. The fundamental principle of naval architecture is that the weight of a floating body equals the weight of the fluid displaced. This was first discovered by the Greek philosopher Archimedes in the third century B.C.

The search for a North West passage to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago has been sought for centuries. Captain John Ross (1777-1856) commanded an Arctic expedition to solve this in 1818. His first expedition failed, but he tried again, after persuading his fiend, Felix Booth to finance another Arctic expedition. Ross spent much time with the Inuit people, and his account included portraits, which you can see above. They also helped Ross plan and chart the waters that they proposed to cross. Ross crossed the Gulf of Boothia in the steamship Victory, and wintered at Felix Harbour. Ross and his men were forced to spend the next four years in the Arctic. They were the first such explorers to survive for so long with the aid of Inuit they learned to live off what the harsh land and waters offered and explored regions to the west and north and identified the location of Magnetic North Pole on the west coast of the Boothia Peninsula in June 1831.There are many illustrations from his account above.