I had an interest in navigation history since I was a kid. I read many books about this subject and Conway's History of the Ship is hands down the best of the bunch. The collection targets the technical aspects of the ship evolution, but there are plenty of old sailor stories for everyone interested.

This particlar volume covers the period of the european emergence and shows how the ships which were used to build the early colonial empires came into being.

However, not all the series is still in print, so you may have to hunt the used book sites if you want to assemble the whole set.

Lots of info into the construction and use of these ships. Not something you are going to read and toss.

Excellent introduction to a critical period in the emergence of modern shipping.

Ask any medieval history buff about the Crusades and he/she can probably regale you for hours with minutiae. Ask him/her about the ships which carried the majority of the Crusaders to the Holy Land and which were critical to the support of their efforts and you are likely to draw a blank. Worse, if you attempt to research the issue, you will soon discover that the available resources are incredibly sparse. Which is where this book comes in.

While the price is daunting and the volume, itself, is surprisingly thin, the sheer amount of information which this book provides on the development of medieval ships and shipping (from the vessels of the Saxons and Vikings up to the galleons of the mid-17th C.) is staggering. Not only does it cover, as one would expect, the various types of vessels and their evolution, but also such minutiae as the various styles of clinker fastenings and carvel buttings, even addressing the various caulking means and materials. There are excellent discussions of navigation and pilotage, sail configurations and sailing techniques, trade practices and routes, and the use of the various vessels in warfare, along with charts and discussions on such practical matters as sailing times and speeds. All points are extremely well supplemented with high quality graphics and illustrations, most unavailable elsewhere. If it's worth knowing, this book at least touches on it and covers most issues in surprising detail.

This is NOT a book for the landlubber, however, and it presumes a lot on the reader's knowledge of and familiarity with various ship and naval terms, a problem which is further compounded by a grossly inadequate, not to say idiosyncratic glossary, which glossary makes no attempt to cover those terms (e.g., while it defines "black powder", it has no entries for such basic nautical terms as "luft" and "lee" or "scuppers", etc.). If you are not a sailor, you may want to have a sailing primer and nautical dictionary to help you work your way through the book, though most of the information can be gleaned contextually and the non-sailor should not be deterred from buying the book out of fear that it might prove utterly incomprehensible.

The list of contributors represents a significant number of the experts in the field, and the quality and extent of the information contained fully reflects the wealth of their knowledge. Unfortunately, its collaborative nature shows and the editing and organization could be much tighter as the book sometimes seems to wander through its topics without a clear order or purpose, resulting in some needless duplications, contradictions and even the occasional oversight.

The book was also first published in 1994 and has not been updated since, despite the subsequent accrual of almost 20 years of additional archaeological and documentary evidence. During that interval, of course, the "Mary Rose" has been raised and recovered, the "Vasa" has been refloated and restored, the "Atocha" has been discovered and much of it and its cargo documented and/or salvaged, and numerous vessels have been recovered from the Aegean and Black Sea. Consequently, some of the information (particularly on the carrack type) is out of date and/or inaccurate (e.g., the appearance, for instance, of the "Mary Rose" is taken from the "Anthony Roll", even tho' that depiction owes little to the actual vessel which was raised). A second edition is overdue.

Those, however, are relatively minor gripes. The simple fact is that, if you can have only one book on the topic, this is the one to have and, given the relative dearth of books on the topic, it may well be the only one available.