The Lost Ships of Charles II's Navy - by Richard Endsor (Hardcover)

About the Book

A comprehensively researched and beautifully illustrated history of the design of the ships of Charles II's Navy, using reconstructed architectural plans based on contemporary records.

Book Synopsis

A comprehensively researched and beautifully illustrated history of the design of the ships of Charles II's Navy, using reconstructed architectural plans based on contemporary records.

The Royal Navy of the late seventeenth century was the greatest enterprise in the country, and in 1677, with Samuel Pepys as Secretary of the Navy, the House of Commons voted to fund the building of 30 new ships, the largest single shipbuilding project up to this point. This new history by award-winning naval historian Richard Endsor describes the history of this great endeavor, and seeks to recreate architectural plans of these ships based on detailed measurements and calculations left behind by Edmund Dummer, an assistant to master shipwright Sir Anthony Deane and later Surveyor of the Navy from 1692 to 1699.

Using Dummer's surviving notebook, supported by the official specification dimension list for the ships, large-scale, artistic drawings and several surviving models, The Lost Ships of Charles II's Navy contains dimensioned and accurate architectural plans for several named ships alongside numerous other illustrations, including contemporary Van de Velde drawings of the ships.

About the Author

Richard Endsor has written extensively on the structures and the building process of seventeenth-century ships, including The Restoration Warship (2009), The Warship Anne (2017) and most recently, The Master Shipwright's Secrets (2020) for which he was awarded the prestigious Anderson Medal for the best maritime book published in 2020. He has also co-authored other books including The Great Ordnance Survey of 1698 (2013) with Frank Fox.