John Harland

John Harland was born in the great shipbuilding city of Belfast in Northern Ireland, but after his medical training he emigrated to Canada. Although the area of British Columbia where he now lives is far from the sea, he has never lost his childhood interest in the sea and ships, devoting most of his spare time to their study. He is a highly active member of the Society for Nautical Research and contributes to its prestigious journal The Mariner's Mirror on a wide range of topics. However, seamanship under sail has been a particular interest for over thirty years. Dr Harland is blessed with a prodigious facility for languages, having a mastery of most major European tongues and a working knowledge of many others. Therefore, he has been able to read and compare virtually every manual and text book ever published on the subject in order to work out how ships were really handled, even down to the smallest detail of shipboard routine. After completing what is virtually a life's work, and as a complete contrast, Dr Harland is currently engaged in studying the development of the steam whalecatcher.