Description
BY RICHARD DE KERBRECH
At the beginning of the 20th century, the White Star Line established an unrivaled standard of luxury in its new, Olympic-class ships which were designed to be the biggest and most magnificent in the world. Olympic, Titanic and Britannic were the flagships of the White Star fleet in the heyday of transatlantic travel, and despite the sinking of Titanic in 1912, Olympic had a long and successful career before the financial pressures of the Depression of the 1930s forced the merger of White Star with its rival, Cunard.
Ships of the White Star Line is the fruit of years of research by maritime historian Richard de Kerbrech. He tells the story of the company through all 89 ships that served the shipping line with detailed technical information, rare photographs and vivid accounts of voyages and incidents. This descriptive and comprehensive history of the White Star Line’s ships will appeal to all those interested in this most controversial and charismatic shipping line.
No armchair theorist, the author served his marine engineering apprenticeship with the Shaw, Savill & Albion Co. Ltd., the shipping company that later adopted names of White Star ships. He was an inspector with the Naval Overseeing Service based at the Admiralty Marine Engineering Establishment at Haslar, and went on the lecture in mechanical and production engineering until his retirement. Hardcover. 240 pages. Illustrated with dozens of black and white archival photos of White Star ships.
