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Poseidon's Progress: The Quest to Improve Life at Sea
Nautical travel and shipboard living have evolved to be both safer and more comfortable for passengers and crewmembers. While some of these improvements have come about through sheer trial and error, others are the result of a careful analysis of problems, followed by finding and implementing scientific solutions.
This book, with a unique problem-solution format, examines the challenges of life at sea and how they have been ameliorated. It covers topics such as ventilation, healthy food and drink, sleeping quarters, sanitation facilities, internal and external lighting, seaworthiness, and survival of maritime disasters (man overboard, shipwreck, fire, and contagious disease). The text traces the history of the various attempts to address the difficulties of life on the water from a scientific, engineering and legal perspective.
This book, with a unique problem-solution format, examines the challenges of life at sea and how they have been ameliorated. It covers topics such as ventilation, healthy food and drink, sleeping quarters, sanitation facilities, internal and external lighting, seaworthiness, and survival of maritime disasters (man overboard, shipwreck, fire, and contagious disease). The text traces the history of the various attempts to address the difficulties of life on the water from a scientific, engineering and legal perspective.
265 pages, Paperback
Published June 3, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 27, 2024
I love ships. Particularly the Age of Sail, but I also served 20 years in the Navy, so … yeah, pretty much all ships. This sounded pretty interesting (and it is) and I requested and got a review copy of it from the publisher through LibraryThing.
The writing at the start seems aimed at a younger, perhaps high school audience. But then Mr. Cooper gets down into the details of his topics: air quality, water, food, sleep, cooling/heating/laundry, buoyancy and stability, life-saving, lighting, …threats (fire and infection.)
If you aren’t into math or chemistry, (or physics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, biology metabolism, nutritional content, physiology, electronics, … more physics and math. You might find yourself skipping/skimming those bts (as I know some did with Andy Weir’s The Martian; but if you do skip, you’ll miss out on some interesting history!) When he talks about air quality, you’ll see calculations of space volumes, air changes; with sleeping, berthing space calculations. The inventions that made life better at sea. The processes, regulations, practices. Legislations, too.
Plus you’ll get lots of fodder for your next trivia night, such as the origin of the term “scuttlebutt”! Mr. Cooper clearly did a LOT of research for this.
Now, be advised this reads like a large research paper and the citations are formatted like one - MLA or Chicago…those two are close enough for me to mix them up. I am a fan of citations- a pronouncement without support is indistinguishable from opinion more than not (IMO, of course…that’s a pronouncement {grin}). And I carp on about not putting in-text references when publishers/authors think they interrupt the reading flow because a small superscript does not really disrupt. But… in this style, I found the form of the in-text cites (Author’s Surname Year of Publication, Page/Pages) to unfortunately get in the way of the flow. My preference is for those superscripts, but this is still worth a read.
One note for the author/publisher: page 88, it is Great Lakes Naval Training … not Great Lake (I’m not sure if the original source of the quote got it wrong.)
The writing at the start seems aimed at a younger, perhaps high school audience. But then Mr. Cooper gets down into the details of his topics: air quality, water, food, sleep, cooling/heating/laundry, buoyancy and stability, life-saving, lighting, …threats (fire and infection.)
If you aren’t into math or chemistry, (or physics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, biology metabolism, nutritional content, physiology, electronics, … more physics and math. You might find yourself skipping/skimming those bts (as I know some did with Andy Weir’s The Martian; but if you do skip, you’ll miss out on some interesting history!) When he talks about air quality, you’ll see calculations of space volumes, air changes; with sleeping, berthing space calculations. The inventions that made life better at sea. The processes, regulations, practices. Legislations, too.
Plus you’ll get lots of fodder for your next trivia night, such as the origin of the term “scuttlebutt”! Mr. Cooper clearly did a LOT of research for this.
Now, be advised this reads like a large research paper and the citations are formatted like one - MLA or Chicago…those two are close enough for me to mix them up. I am a fan of citations- a pronouncement without support is indistinguishable from opinion more than not (IMO, of course…that’s a pronouncement {grin}). And I carp on about not putting in-text references when publishers/authors think they interrupt the reading flow because a small superscript does not really disrupt. But… in this style, I found the form of the in-text cites (Author’s Surname Year of Publication, Page/Pages) to unfortunately get in the way of the flow. My preference is for those superscripts, but this is still worth a read.
One note for the author/publisher: page 88, it is Great Lakes Naval Training … not Great Lake (I’m not sure if the original source of the quote got it wrong.)
February 5, 2025
Welcome to the changes, hardships, and improvements during the Age of Sail.
As part of a family who participated in 18th century land-based military, I knew a minimal amount about the hardships of the time, and as an RN since the 1960s, I have a small grasp of the advances in medicine that war and its hardships brings. This volume brings to light many of the engineering advances in shipping, shipbuilding, and life on board that today we take for granted. But this work is so much more than the usual Publish or Perish volume. It is written on many levels of understanding in a way that the reader can choose to advance their knowledge in a particular area or skim over what is found to be "above their pay grade" and move on to something found to be more comprehensible. Well worth having, but vision problems moved me to donate the print copy I read after winning it in a LibraryThing Giveaway to the Duluth, MN Public Library.
@mcfarlandpublishing @ibrarythingofficial @duluthpubliclibrary #nonfiction #ageofsail
As part of a family who participated in 18th century land-based military, I knew a minimal amount about the hardships of the time, and as an RN since the 1960s, I have a small grasp of the advances in medicine that war and its hardships brings. This volume brings to light many of the engineering advances in shipping, shipbuilding, and life on board that today we take for granted. But this work is so much more than the usual Publish or Perish volume. It is written on many levels of understanding in a way that the reader can choose to advance their knowledge in a particular area or skim over what is found to be "above their pay grade" and move on to something found to be more comprehensible. Well worth having, but vision problems moved me to donate the print copy I read after winning it in a LibraryThing Giveaway to the Duluth, MN Public Library.
@mcfarlandpublishing @ibrarythingofficial @duluthpubliclibrary #nonfiction #ageofsail
January 12, 2025
I like reading books set at sea, but I'm certainly not an expert on ships or sailing. However, I was pleased to get chosen for an ARC of this book. It covers a wide time frame, with many different subjects, including diet, construction, accommodations and more. Unfortunately, it was full of charts and math and cryptic diagrams that didn't do me much good. It did have interesting photos, but honestly, I was overwhelmed most of the time. Recommended for those already really familiar with life at sea.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews