Details: By: David Lyon; AOS Naval Non-Fiction - General

Innumerable books have been devoted to almost every aspect of the Royal Navy and its achievements in the age of sail, but there is no single, comprehensive listing of its ships and their essential characteristics. The Sailing Navy List, a major work of scholarship and the fruit of nearly twenty years' work, more than fulfils this primary need, since it not only includes basic specifications, building data and fates, but organises the material into types and classes with notes on design and designer.

Typical entries include dimensions, tonnage, armament, builder, construction dates and detailed notes on the fates of individual vessels, with short narrative introductions outlining the principal influences on development. The book is broken down into distinct periods, further subdivided into the major ship types, which together amount to a skeletal history of Royal Navy warship developments.

The Sailing Navy List includes prizes, purchases, coastguard and customs vessels, yard craft and even hulks. A complete ship name index is included, and chapter introductions outline design developments and further historical data. The enormous task of research for this book involved the collation of data from many primary, but often conflicting, sources to guarantee a high degree of uniformity and authority. The Sailing Navy List is an accurate and exhaustive guide to the sailing vessels of the Royal Navy, the ultimate reference book for the age of the sailing warship.