Bridging the Seas: The Rise of Naval Architecture in the Industrial Age, 1800–2000 by Larrie D. Ferreiro

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bridging the Seas: The Rise of Naval Architecture in the Industrial Age, 1800–2000 by Larrie D. Ferreiro Apostolos Delis (bio) Bridging the Seas: The Rise of Naval Architecture in the Industrial Age, 1800–2000 By Larrie D. Ferreiro. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020. Pp. 408. Bridging the Seas: The Rise of Naval Architecture in the Industrial Age, 1800–2000 By Larrie D. Ferreiro. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020. Pp. 408. In Bridging the Seas, a history of naval architecture in the modern and contemporary periods, Larrie D. Ferreiro successfully continues the work he began with Ships and Sciences (MIT Press, 2007). Ferreiro is one of the very few experts, worldwide, in the history of naval architecture, and his book is a rare reference on this topic. It comprehensively synthesizes the developments in naval architecture from the eighteenth century to the present day, covering the industrialization of ships and shipbuilding. Ferreiro does this by analyzing the role and involvement of naval architects in the technical evolution of ships. The book addresses crucial historical questions such as the search for speed under sail, the transition from sail to steam technology, the accurate prediction of a ship's performance, and the standardization of ship construction. The author furthermore analyzes the evolution of naval architects into a distinct category of scientists and professionals, which also came to include women, a dimension often overlooked by historians in this field. Ferreiro convincingly demonstrates his main thesis, namely that the progress of naval architecture was dictated, adopted, and utilized by commercial shipyards. In fact, technical developments in merchant ships anticipated those in naval vessels, often due to the conservatism or bias of institutional actors (British Admiralty) and thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit shown by architects such as Brunel, Griffiths, or Napier. The book also answers important questions related to the interplay between naval architecture and commercial shipping, including the impact of wave line theory on the ultimate development of the sailing ship; the (sound) belief of experts in the strength of iron and steel hulls; and the recognition of the classification societies (e.g., Lloyds Register of Ships), which went from being commercial information entities to regulatory organizations for safety at sea. The book also provides a thorough account of the institutional history of naval architecture in various western European countries, the United States, Japan, and Russia. Generally, the author manages to deal successfully with the multilingual information of his primary and secondary sources and bibliography. This offers a comparative dimension, which may be one of the most important contributions of this book. The narrative is based on detailed information—technical, scientific, commercial, and social—enriched with illustrations, designs, and photographs. Some of this information, like mathematical formulas or complex designs, might be inaccessible to non-experts, but most of it is certainly [End Page 588] helpful for understanding technical matters. Another dimension to appreciate, exhibited in other recent books such as Crosbie Smith's Coal, Steam and Ships (Cambridge University Press, 2018), is a narrative that expands into analysis of some of the main actors, including aspects of their personal lives and social relations. Since the book is about the rise of naval architecture in the industrial age, more emphasis should have been placed on marine engineering, since naval architecture and marine engineering came to be strictly interwoven from the period in question up to the present. Instead, there is limited emphasis (only in a section of the second chapter) on the evolution of the steam engine. This omission is also evident in the section on professional societies and publications. The author mentions only two institutions of civil engineers and mechanical engineers, without deeper analysis of other similar institutions—and the eventuality that their published transactions might have hosted papers on naval architecture. Similarly, in the publications, there is no mention of very important periodicals such as The Artisan and The Engineer, even though they frequently hosted papers, information, illustrations, and designs on both marine engineering and naval architecture. Overall, Bridging the Seas is an important reference on a little-explored topic and addresses (both explicitly and implicitly) many questions for further research on a variety of aspects of political, military, economic, social...