A few weeks ago I went through all of the online resources in ShipIndex.org, to see if they all worked. It’s not uncommon for interfaces and search structures to change, and the result is that URLs slightly change. Any change to a URL, however slight, will likely cause the link to break, however, so I wanted to review all of them, and fix the ones that I could.

In one instance, I thought that the resource had disappeared completely, but I got a very helpful reply from the folks running the site, I learned of the new URL structure, and was easily able to update those links. In another instance, I thought a different resource was gone for good, but after a bunch of searching was able to find it, and figure out an update. Some still need attention, and I’m still working on those.

Yesterday, however, I learned that some of the oldest links in the database, to Ship Registers and other resources at Mystic Seaport, no longer work. These worked when I checked two or three weeks ago, and have worked since they were loaded into the ShipIndex.org database in 2009, but not today.

The Research collection at Mystic Seaport has gotten an online overhaul, and the new online resources are in a different interface. While some like the new interface, and the old one certainly did need an update, it appears that we can no longer link directly to an entry for a ship. I’m checking with the staff at the library to see if that is, in fact, the case, but if so, I’ll have to take out about a million direct links to these ships. I’ll keep the ships in the ShipIndex database, because I can still say with certainty that these ships are mentioned in the resources at Mystic, but I won’t be able to take a user directly to the entries any more.

This has happened with other resources in the past, most notably (in my mind) the Ellis Island Ship Database. I find it frustrating, because I like providing direct links, and I think they’re easier for people to use and cite, but I guess it was done for a reason. In the past, one could save a URL, and use that to link directly to the resource. Now, you’ll need to repeat the search every time you want to get to that specific resource, and your citation will need to describe how to do the search, rather than just include the link to the page in question.

If I’m able to update these links to direct links at some point, I’ll certainly do so, but I doubt that’ll be possible.

ShipIndex.org is excited to announce our first publication(s)! We have three “Guides to Ships”, and each one introduces a different type of important vessel, with historic and modern images, and brief descriptions.

Each guide is a 12-panel, folded, laminated publication. They’ll hold up to rigorous use, and will be helpful in many different settings. They are each 9” by 4” when folded, and are a great size for slipping in your bag for the next trip to the port or the beach.

As an introduction, and for May 30 and May 31 ONLY, the guides are available at $2 off their regular price – for two days only, they’re just $5.95 a piece! A set of all three is available for $15.95, for the next two days only. On June 1, they’ll all return to their usual price. Standard shipping in the US remains FREE. Standard international shipping is an estimation of the actual shipping cost. And there’s no sales tax, except for residents of New York.

These are a great Fathers Day gift, though they won’t be at this price again. Stock up now!

The three guides are as follows:

Guide to Tall Ships: With a focus on square-rigged versus fore-and-aft-rigged ships, this guide explains terminology such as brigs, barks, barkentines, sloops, cutters, schooners, ketches, yawls, and more. It is illustrated with modern and historic photographs and paintings. The guide also has a map of significant maritime museums around the world.

Guide to Naval Ships: Highlights include a range of modern and historic naval ships, from battleships and aircraft carriers to patrol boats and cutters. The Guide to Naval Ships has images of modern and historic vessels from around the world, and particularly notes several naval museum ships.

Guide to Merchant Ships: This guide describes a wide range of merchant vessel types that one might see from shore, from oil tankers and roros (car carriers) to container ships and LNG carriers. Unusual ships, like orange juice carriers, livestock ships, and more, are also described and illustrated. Fishing vessels, ferries, and cruise ships round out the guide.

Each guide has a webpage associated with it, though as befitting the newness of the guides, the webpages aren’t yet complete.

Please check them out and let me know what you think. This is an introductory offer, and prices go back to the list price on June 1.

The Yale Center for British Art, in New Haven, CT, has two marine art-related exhibits coming up.

From Sept 15 to Dec 4, 2016, they’ll be hosting an exhibit titled “Spreading Canvas: Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting“, which they say “is the first major exhibition to survey the tradition of marine painting that was inextricably linked to Britain’s rise to prominence as a maritime and imperial power, and to position the genre at the heart of the burgeoning British art world of the eighteenth century.”

Yale University Press will be publishing a fully-illustrated volume to accompany the exhibit.

At nearly the same time, and to complement the exhibit, the YCBA will host an exhibit titled “Yinka Shonibare MBE“, which will highlight the Nigerian artist’s work on Adm Nelson. The website describing the exhibit includes an image of Shonibare’s work, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, but it’s unclear to me if that work will be present. I’m a little unclear on it — perhaps they’ll have a smaller version of the work, as the original is quite large, and is now permanently (I thought) installed outside the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Both mentions come via Enfilade, an online newsletter for Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture (HECAA).

It’s a few days late for his birthday, but this interesting page highlights the role of ships in many of Shakespeare’s plays. As the author writes, regarding the pirates who rescue Hamlet in his eponymous play, “Consider that without the intervention of the pirates, Hamlet would have ended up in England with his neck on a chopping block, and Claudius would have reigned unchallenged as King of Denmark.” And here’s a bit about the British sub HMS Shakespeare — plus, of course, the ShipIndex.org entry for ships named Shakespeare. The first links came from gCaptain’s Maritime Monday links for today.