Ships' Fastenings: From Sewn Boat to Steamship (review)

Michael McCarthy serves as curator of the Department of Maritime Archaeology at the Western Australian Maritime Museum. His book focuses "on those fastenings that appear in, or on, a hull serving to secure it in service" (p. 9), and it is a worthy addition to the library of any boat or ship enthusiast. McCarthy documents what he considers to be the "central element in boat and shipbuilding traditions over place and time" (p. 3). The book's timeframe begins in ancient Egypt, when reed boats were still lashed together, and carries through to the twentieth century and the employment of welding.

McCarthy separates his book into chapters that array the development of fasteners into a roughly chronological order. This entails problems because certain fasteners have survived through many centuries, coexisting with older as well as more modern technologies. Ships' Fastenings serves more as an encyclopedic reference work than an argument-supporting research study. Yet, in providing a descriptive guide to the fasteners that have been used throughout recorded history, McCarthy has succeeded admirably. His book includes a handy chapter on "Modern Terminology" and an appendix of "Explanatory Notes on Metallic Fastenings."

McCarthy incorporates thorough descriptions of clinker and carvel shipbuilding in northern Europe. While he examines well-known fastening systems in depth, he also sheds light on some of the more obscure fastening material, such as the use of Muntz Metal. There is a wealth of information on composite iron and steel fastenings. Previously, these types of fastenings have been considered too modern for in-depth study, or perhaps archaeologists have focused too much on the fasteners associated with wooden vessels. For whatever reason, the analysis of late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ship-fastening technology has been neglected until now. McCarthy's book goes a long way toward fleshing out the story of these long-overlooked fastening technologies.

One shortcoming concerns the illustrations, which are often placed in the outside margin of the page and are occasionally difficult to decipher. With a topic such as ships' fastenings, it is best to rely on larger, easy-to-see representations.

In Ships' Fastenings, McCarthy has synthesized a great deal of primary and secondary source material into a rich resource on the history of organic and metallic fasteners used to construct ships' hulls. He limits his work to the fasteners used to secure hulls. To include information on fasteners for upper works, standing rigging, ship joinery, and cabins would have required a multivolume work. McCarthy provides the reader with the information necessary to answer most important questions concerning the way in which ships' hulls have been fastened, and his bibliography points the way to further study for readers requiring a more detailed treatment of fasteners. While the book would have benefited from closer editing, it still represents an important and long-overdue addition to our knowledge of shipbuilding technology. I would recommend it to anyone wishing to learn more about the methods and technology of ship construction.