British Motor Coasters

British Motor Coasters

216 pages. 275x215mm. Printed on gloss art paper, casebound with printed board covers.

This important book documents the history of the British Motor Coaster. The opening chapter looks at the engines used to power these vessels and then moves on to record some of the pioneering motor ships built just before the First World War. The subsequent chapters take decades in history, from the 1930s, through the Second World War and just after, up to the final British-built motor ships of the very early 1990s. Several of the chapters have sub sections covering tanker vessels, whilst the size of the ships covered range from the tiny just under 100-ton coasters of the early years up to the near 5,000 tonners of the early 1980s. The text is enlived with the descriptive memories of men who worked on or with various of the craft mentioned and the book is illustrated throughout with a copious number of highly detailed ships’ plans, along with a selection of photographs showing some of the vessels at work. There is also a 16 page colour section illustrating a number of the ships described. Charles Waine is an acknowledged expert on coastal and short sea shipping, having self published a series of seminal books on the subject in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s. This history of the British Motor Coaster fits well with these earlier volumes and is sure to find favour with maritime historians and ship modellers everywhere, as well as anyone with an interest in the story of the British coasting trade.