In this book I have endeavoured to portray the sailing ships of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as they appeared in their various forms and types, to bring out the ships rather than their exploits. It is not claimed that every type is included, to do so would require a library not a book, but I think I can claim to have produced a good representative collection. We have many exceedingly good and authoritative books on the history of sail and the men who made it, but on the anatomical side of the ships themselves such books rarely go beyond generalities. We have books written by men who actually served in some of our most famous ships, well written books which bring vividly before us the life aboard, which give us stirring word pictures of their voyages and adventures, but which, after reading from cover to cover, leave us completely in the dark regarding the more intimate side of the ship herself. So it is from the anatomical and not the historical angle that I have compiled this book, in the hope that it may make some little contribution towards filling the gap in our records of these ships before it is too late.
—from the Introduction
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