This edited article about tea-clippers originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 705 published on 19 July 1975.

The Cutty Sark by John S Smith

Protesting creaks came from the Ariel’s three masts as the wind billowed the sails and whistled through the rigging of the tea clipper tied up at the jetty in China’s Foochow harbour in 1866.

In his cabin, the skipper looked up from his charts and turned to his mate. “Are we ready to sail?” he asked.

The mate nodded. “Cargo’s all stowed,” he said. “What do you reckon of the other clippers, sir?”

“They’re fine vessels,” mused the skipper. “But we’ll show ‘em a clean pair of heels, all the way to England.”

Opening the door of his cabin, the skipper stepped on to the deck to look at his competitors. There were four other sailing ships, either tied up at the jetty or anchored midstream. All were waiting for the right moment to set sail for England and each wanted to get there first.

These were tea clippers, fine vessels of the mid-nineteenth century with sleek lines for fast speed. If their freight space was small, this did not matter for the cargo they carried was worth a good deal in London. But it had to be got there quickly to fetch the best price and to keep its quality. Consequently, there was always keen competition among the clipper captains to be the first to arrive in London.

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This edited article about Mississippi steamboats originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 700 published on 14 June 1975.

The Robert E. Lee and behind it, the Natchez, rival riverboats in the great Mississippi boat race

Everyone agreed that it was going to be the race of the century. After years of rivalry, the captains of the river steamers Robert E. Lee and Natchez were going to fight it out over the 1,218 miles of the Mississippi River that lay between New Orleans, Louisiana’s biggest city, and distant St. Louis.

It had all the makings of an epic contest, because both men and vessels were well matched. John W. Cannon was captain and owner of the Robert E. Lee, a steamer 285 feet (86 metres) long, 48 feet (14 metres) wide and with a draught of only nine feet (2.7 metres). The Lee was driven by paddle wheels 38 feet (11.5 metres) in diameter and powered by steam generated in eight boilers.

Rivalling it was the 303 feet (92 metres) long Natchez, with paddle wheels almost 43 feet (13 metres) across, commanded by Captain Thomas P. Leathers.

The date was 30th June, 1870, and it was soon to be decided which of these two vessels would reach St. Louis first in a straight race.

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This edited article about the Titanic originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 668 published on 2 November 1974.

On the deck of the Titanic

Titanic sinks as her passengers attempt to escape the disaster in the inadequate number of lifeboats by Peter Jackson

The sinking of the Titanic by Graham Coton

The famous Titanic liner was certainly aptly named. At the time of the disaster, when she sank on her maiden voyage in 1912, she was the largest ship afloat, could carry 3,320 persons, and weighed 46,328 tons.

The Titanic was of an all-steel construction and inside her steel hull were watertight compartments, each 60 feet long, which were entered, one from another, through watertight doors. She was, it was claimed at the time, unsinkable!

Armed with this confidence in the ship, the pride of the White Star shipping line, the first passengers set sail from Britain for America on the Titanic’s first and last voyage.

The water of the Atlantic on the night of the disaster was very calm and flat. She was steaming at her top speed of 22 knots and making good time.

The icebergs which float south from the Greenland coast can be a great hazard to ships on the busy routes between Europe and North America. They chill the air around them so that they are often surrounded by a cloud of mist.

And on that fateful night of April 14, 1912, one of these treacherous icebergs could not be seen from the ship as it sailed happily along. It struck the Titanic a gigantic blow ripping a hole right along the ship’s side below the water line.

She took two hours to go down and during that time 652 passengers managed to get into the lifeboats, and a further 60 into collapsible boats. In all, 712 people were saved but 1,513 others perished. These included the famous journalist W. T. Stead and John Jacob Astor, the American inventor.

The tragedy of the disaster was that many more people could have survived. Less than twenty miles away from the stricken vessel was the Leyland liner Californian which could have come to the Titanic’s rescue had its radio operator been on duty. Only the arrival of the Cunard liner Carpathia 20 minutes after the Titanic went down prevented further loss of life.

As a result of the disaster, the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea was called in London in 1913. At this meeting rules were drawn up requiring that every ship should have lifeboat space for each person on board. The Titanic, incidentally, had only 1,178 boat spaces for the 2,224 on board. Also, that lifeboat drills be held during each voyage; and, since the Californian had not heard the distress calls of the Titanic, that ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch. The International Ice Patrol was also established to warn ships of ice in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

This edited article about aviation originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 685 published on 1 March 1975.

Supermarine S6 seaplane by J H Batchelor

Six seaplanes skimmed over the water off Southampton and roared into the sky. At the controls of one of them was Flight Lieutenant H. R. D. Waghorn. As he gained height, Waghorn saw below him the 50-kilometre circuit of the Schneider trophy race marked by pylons mounted on destroyers.

Waghorn and the two other R.A.F. planes in his team began to lap the course at ever-increasing speeds. Competing against them was a strong team of Italian air force officers flying three red-painted Macchis.

The R.A.F. were flying two S6 and one S5 machines, designed by R. J. Mitchell for Supermarine Aviation. These were slim monoplanes mounted on big floats.

At first, Waghorn’s blue and silver streamlined plane answered well to the controls. It was making a record time, although a Macchi M-52 was proving a close challenger.

Waghorn mentally thanked the mechanics who had worked like demons to fit a new cylinder block in time for the competition. They had been toiling on it during the night before the race, and Waghorn had never expected it to be ready in time.

By their non-stop efforts, the men had finished the job with only two hours to spare.

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This edited article about wind power originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 681 published on 1 February 1975.

An English windmill by Ronald Lampitt

For many thousands of years until the age of modern propulsion, wind has been the prime force whereby man was able to move across vast stretches of water. Nearly all the great explorations across the oceans of the world were made under sail. The kind most commonly used was the rectangular sail or square sail. It hung from a pole or crosspiece called a yard, the yard being fastened to the mast by a loop.

Later on, people improved on this simple principle and varied it in many ways. A Dutch engineer, Simon Stevin built a four-wheeled carriage with sails, plus masts which was able to move up and down the seashore and could carry 26 people, in comparative comfort. The Dutch always had the reputation of being a seafaring nation and from about 1400 to 1800, the Netherlands pioneered most of the leading improvements in sailing ships. To them is attributed the invention of the jib and gaff-sail.

In the nineteenth century, American ship builders built a series of tall-masted ships called clippers. These were renowned for their sailing capacities but in turn, they were dependent on their unseen ally, the wind. If the wind was in the right quarter, records could be set up, but if the wind failed, the ship would languish. From this, arose the phrase “in the doldrums”. (The Doldrums is a belt of calms and light variable winds.) The steamer which succeeded the clippers or schooners was, of course, not dependent on the wind. With its own built-in power unit, it could plod on, through fair weather or foul.

The wind was also harnessed for driving windmills. These were generally used for grinding corn or pumping out waterlogged agricultural land so that more food could be grown. It has been assumed that windmills were a Continental invention and that travellers from the British Isles stumbled upon them. But according to contemporary records, one of the earliest mentions of a windmill occurs in documents which are concerned with the Third Crusade, (1189-92). One of the earliest definite records on an English mill is dated 1191.

By the eighteenth century, the local grinding mill was an integral landmark of the rural scene. A mill could usually generate about 30 h.p. while the sail turned at the rate of 12-20 revolutions per minute.

Windmills were composed of three types. “Post” mills mainly in Suffolk, “smock” mills in Kent and “tower” mills in Lincolnshire and the Isle of Ely. In good conditions, a mill could grind ten bushels an hour.

Industrial civilisation killed the windmills and now most of them remain only as picturesque survivals. By 1957, there were only thirty millers left, and by 1964, only 21, (in Britain).

But the day of the wind power is not entirely over. Wind pumps still help many farmers to get water and the winds propel an increasing number of pleasure yachts in our present age of leisure. And if you still don’t believe in the power of the wind, we suggest that you try and put up an umbrella in the teeth of the wind. We think that you will find that the wind will win!

This edited article about Joshua Slocum originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 680 published on 25 January 1975.

In 1895 Joshua Slocum claimed to have seen a spectre on board his sloop, ‘Spray’, by Graham Coton

The sailing sloop Spray was only 36 feet long, and the weather off the coast of Patagonia could hardly have been worse. Under short sail the little vessel rode it out as best she could, rising to the crest of each tremendous wave before dropping like a stone into the trough, while her timbers groaned in protest. Suddenly the Spray’s captain glanced behind him to see a wave of unbelievable size bearing down on him. He knew instinctively that there would be no riding this one. Without a moment’s hesitation he abandoned the wheel and leaped for the rigging, scrambling up as high as he could go.

From the top of the mast the man looked down in time to see the whole of his vessel vanish beneath countless tons of water. Clinging desperately to the rigging, he waited to see if the deck would appear again or not. Somewhat to his surprise it did, water cascading from it as the sloop shook herself like a dog. Totally unperturbed, the captain slid down from his perch and regained the cockpit. Perhaps if he had had some companion he might have made some half joking remark. But there was none. In that January of 1896, Captain Joshua Slocum was engaged on an enterprise that had never been attempted before.

Single handed, he was sailing round the world.

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This edited article about the coracle originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 677 published on 4 January 1975.

A Welsh fisherman with his coracle in Llangollen

For centuries men have used this strange river-going craft for fishing and travelling from place to place, and the coracle is one of the most unusual.

This unique form of transport is to be found still being used in Wales for fishing and getting around in. It has remained unchanged in design for 2,000 years. The Romans under Julius Caesar described these strange craft which the ancient Britons used all over Britain.

In those days they were made from wicker and covered in animal skin but today they are covered in canvas and then tar is painted on to make them waterproof.

The coracle is propelled along by the oar, a very delicate, skilled operation which, if not carried out correctly, will result in the boat sailing round in a circle!

This edited article about submarines originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 667 published on 26 October 1974.

The German battleship Tirpitz was sunk by a British midget submarine, the X-craft, which sailed 100 km undetected to the Norwegian fjord where she lay. Picture by Mike Tregenza

Perils awaited Germany’s submarines in the Bay of Biscay where the curved coasts of France and Spain meet the Atlantic. During the Second World War, Britain and her allies sank so many enemy submarines in the bay that the German crews grimly called it “the black pit.”

Their chief threat came from aircraft armed with depth charges, for it took even a good submarine crew a few vital seconds longer to crash dive than it did for the aircraft to attack. Faced with this threat, Admiral Karl Doenitz, commander of the U-boats, was forced to re-think his tactics. One of his weapons which had a short success was an acoustic torpedo designed to home-in on the sound of a surface ship’s propellers. But this was defeated when the Allies found a counter-measure to it. Doenitz then fitted the submarines with more anti-aircraft guns and ordered them to fight it out on the surface. This was called the aircraft trap, with a small number of submarines running together for massed firepower, but it was a submarine trap instead. All the aircraft had to do was to circle out of range of the guns and radio for air reinforcements or call up the nearest group of hunting ships.

What Doenitz needed was a super-submarine or a better submarine which was fast underwater and could stay under for the whole of its patrol. It would have to be able to run its main engines while submerged and somehow allow the engines and crew to breathe underwater. A scientist, Professor Walter, tested a boat which used concentrated hydrogen peroxide as fuel and could run submerged at almost 30 knots, faster than most Allied escort ships. But it was rejected because of the enormous expense of producing its fuel. Walter’s other development proved to be the key to the problem. This was the Schnorkel, a technically advanced version of the breathing tube you can use with a mask for underwater swimming.

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This edited article about ships originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 666 published on 19 October 1974.

The Spanish Galleon

When the term galleon is mentioned, we automatically think of a Spanish galleon. It is just possible that the basic design did originate in Spain, but the concept spread rapidly to all parts of Europe.

These very richly decorated vessels rode high out of the water and this added to their commanding appearance. A fleet of them must have been an awesome sight as they sailed down upon an enemy, their woodwork richly painted and gilded in gold.

The word “galleon” appears to be derived from the word “galley.” However, the galleys used oars rather than sails, so the origin is in doubt. But one interesting point which both craft had in common was the ram which was used in the galley for charging into and running down other ships.

The portion which projects out in front of the galleon may be a remnant of this galley ram.

Whenever we remember the Spanish Armada, we remember galleons. At the time, the naval might of Spain was thought to be invincible and so it was, until it came up against the English men-of-war.

The heavily-gunned Spanish ships were slow and lumbering in comparison to their English opponents. The English ships, under the command of such seafarers as Drake, Frobisher and Hawkins, almost literally ran rings around their clumsy foes.

The main advantage the English had was that they could get in beneath the guns of the Spanish vessels and blast away into them at close quarters with deadly effect. This the English ships proceeded to do and their tactics left the Spanish at a loss.

These high vessels, although they looked so imposing, were top-heavy in a storm. When they had been defeated, they tried to escape around the top of Scotland, but the rough seas and appalling weather drove them on to the coasts of Britain.

It was a classic case of David (a small English ship) beating Goliath (a Spanish galleon).

This edited article about originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 665 published on 12 October 1974.

The Mayflower leaving Plymouth by James E McConnell

It was really a quite unremarkable small ship of 180 tons, but her name, the “Mayflower” has taken its place in the history of Britain as a very important ship.

As most people know it was in this ship that the famous Pilgrim Fathers set sail for their new home in America.

The Pilgrim Fathers were a group of about 35 Puritans and, together with 67 other passengers, they set sail from Plymouth in Devon on September 6th, 1620.

The Pilgrim Fathers took with them a surprisingly large amount of baggage. Furniture, cooking utensils, as well as goats, chickens, pigs and dogs, were all carried aboard so that they would have everything they needed when they arrived at their new home.

The voyage across the Atlantic Ocean took two months and the ship anchored at Cape Cod in Massachusetts. This was not where they had expected to land. They had intended to land farther south in Virginia, but the captain did not want to risk the hazardous journey down the coast.

Before going ashore, the leaders of the group gathered in the cabin of the “Mayflower” and gave thanks to God for their safe arrival.

The Pilgrim Fathers then set out to found the new country of America.