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SHIPS: FROM THE ARCHIVES OF HARLAND AND WOLFF - THE BUILDERS OF THE TITANIC Taken from the archives of Harland and Wolff, one of the world's most enduring and respected shipbuilding companies, SHIPS presents a selection of elegant designs. During an era in which steam propulsion was still in its infancy, many of these historic illustrations depict the tentative crossover to the new technology, incoporating the fine lines and slender hull shape of the traditional sailing vessel with the power of the new engines. While steam was intended to be the main source of motive power, the addition of sails provided an alternative and trusted method of propulsion should this "new-fangled" steam engine fail to live up to its expectations. Edwin Harland was known in his day as an innovative and daring ship designer and his flair for elegance as well as strength is apparent throughout this riveting history. The construction of these ships provides as much in the way of safety, utility and comfort as it does to aesthetics. This unique account is both a fascinating and historic document and a superb expression of the shipbuilder's love of seagoing craft, and his exquisite skill in designing such refined ships to the most precise specifications. Lavishly illustrated, this highly informative work contains over 175 color illustrations.

As more and more vessels now look to navigate the ice-laden waters of the Arctic Nikeel Idnani sales and marketing manager for Ulstein Middle East based in Dubai analyses the factors surrounding the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

The use of sophisticated sonar equipment (developed by Klein Associates USA) to carry out underwater searches (principally for wreckage) and map excavation sites is discussed with refrence to the location of the Titanic Hamilton Scourge Bredalbane De Braak Whidah and Edinburgh and also to undersea aircraft remains.

The author's look back to conditions in the engine rooms of the early steamships such as Olympic Titanic Britannic Great Britain Great Eastern HMS Arrogant Periere and Ville de Paris. The machinery surrounding the engineers is described and includes the great slow engines driving paddles or screw propellers through gears the later direct driving engines hand steering governers starting equipment separate control equipment for each engine etc. Changes on the starting platform that took place with the advent of turbines and diesels are also discussed.

Risk to health and safety the environment and activity are analysed with respect to professional responsibility, the law, conduct, judgement, communications, management, professional development and public awareness. Examples of past disasters are given.

ProSEA (The Professional Shipwreck Explorers Association) is working hard to develop a program that will ensure the preservation of significant information relating to salvaged shipwreck artifacts or their related cultural content and will detail what happened to all the artifacts recovered from shipwrecks over the last 50 years and what is happening to artifacts currently being recovered from the Titanic. The program will develop a database to identify and preserve information about salvaged artifacts. Computerised records of each object recovered from underwater will be maintained using the ProSEA artifact registration database registry.