Textbook of Seamanship, 1883

[igenlode]

For reference: TEXT-BOOK OF SEAMANSHIPTHE EQUIPPING AND HANDLING OF VESSELS UNDER SAIL OR STEAM.FOR THE USE OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

The proper handling of square-rigged ships in the 1880s.
(Technically a little beyond me in places, but I can get the gist of most of it.)

Edit: Windward Performance of Sailing Warships

Comments

[sallymn]

Yay for reference books onine!!!

[igenlode]

I think we may almost have reached the stage where there is as much obscure information available online as off -- although the number of reference works that have actually been transcribed and formatted, like that one, as opposed to photographed, is much lower. There is still far more detailed information to be had in the pages of the average old book than on a given web page; the difference is that some web pages now consist of old books...

[sallymn]

This is true - and I have found a wonderful number of wildly obscure books in the Internet Archive too :) Best of both worlds.