John Masefield’s ‘dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, butting through the Channel in the mad March days’ has become a ship type of universal appeal, both for its simple, functional beauty and its faithful toil before the advent of universal road haulage. In this new book a collection of more than 300 photographs has been drawn together to tell the story of the development of the steam and diesel coasters, which originated mainly in the UK and the Netherlands. The term ‘coaster’ embraces a huge range of types including the steam colliers, the puffers, packets, steam flats and lighters mainly designed for inland seas, then the ubiquitous steam coaster itself, built in large numbers for use around British shores but also further afield in every corner of the world. Coastal tankers and other specialist types like chemical and cement carriers also evolved. As well as the details of the ships themselves, the book covers cargo handling and stowing, machinery, the coastal trades, the owners and builders and, not least, the crews and their jobs and their lives at sea. A hugely evocative and illuminating book to delight and inform ship enthusiasts everywhere.

The book is the first to detail the 170-year evolution of the powered bulk carriers which continue to have a major role in the world’s trades and economies. Their design and technological development is traced from the screw colliers of the 1850s which revolutionised the British coastal coal trade. The same engineering principles were applied to produce ocean-going steam and later motor tramps. By the end of the 19th century, the capabilities and economies of these ‘black freighters’ had captured from the sailing ship much of the world’s trade in bulk commodities. In the second half of the 20th century, the tramps in turn evolved into multi-purpose, dry bulk carriers. These workhorses of the sea transport commodities including metallic ores, grain, coal, timber and other minerals. Quantities of up to 400,000 tons are carried in the largest, specialised ore carriers. In a parallel development, applying the same technical principles produced smaller yet efficient steam and later motor coasters which came to dominate short sea shipping. The book concludes with a discussion of how the economies of transportation provided by bulk carriers have had profound effects on industrialisation, globalisation and the world’s economy, and discusses the environmental impact of these ships.