Bøger af Richard Gebhart

"Richard Gebhart traces the Atlantic-bound voyages of Great Lakes ships, recovering the voices of long-ago ship captains, along with their cargo manifests and itineraries. Drawing on research in old newspapers and maritime archives, he traces the construction of new ships and shipyards, the comings and goings and travails of the lakes' workhorses, and makes a visit to a boneyard where many ships ended their lives. Among many other lost tales, Gebhart brings back to light the rise of oil tankers, marking the great twentieth-century energy transition in shipping"--

From the day that the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle launched the Griffin in 1679 to the 1975 sinking of the celebrated Edmund Fitzgerald, thousands of commercial ships have sailed on the vast and perilous waters of the Great Lakes. In a harbinger of things to come, on the return leg of its first trip in late summer 1679, the Griffin disappeared and has never been seen again. In the centuries since then, the records show that an alarming number of shipwrecks occurred on the Great Lakes. The fearsome wrath of the storms that brew over the Great Lakes has challenged and defeated some of the staunchest vessels constructed in the shipyards of port cities along the U.S. and Canadian lakeshores. Here Richard Gebhart tells the tales of some of these ships and their captains and crews, from their launches to their sad demises--or sometimes, their celebrated retirements. This volume is a must-read for anyone intrigued by the maritime history of the Great Lakes.