Today the small wooden ships called caravels would hardly be noticed in a port full of modern sailing vessels. But in their day, they were a technological triumph - the space shuttles of the fifteenth century. The creation of the caravel, a ship ideally suited to the uncertainties of coastal exploration and transatlantic travel, changed the map of the world forever. And yet there are no drawings or models from that time which tell us exactly what these ships looked like or how they were built. In David Macaulay's SHIP, we join a group of modern day underwater archaeologists as they search for a long-lost caravel in the reefs of the Caribbean. The piece-by-piece recovery of maritime artefacts, along with their subsequent interpretation, is straightforwardly described through a combination of drawings, documents, maps and diagrams. And as the clues to the past are pieced together, a story is revealed - of the triumphant birth of the ship Magdalena of Seville, and of its tragic final voyage a continent away. Although a work of fiction, SHIP is based almost entirely on recent and continuing efforts of archaeologists and historians around the world. David Macaulay again demonstrates his rare skill in clearly presenting a wealth of historical and technological information through the immediacy of narrative.

Ships Maritime