Tropic Suns

When a ship set out for the Americas in the sixteenth century, the crew faced a long voyage and a host of difficulties along the way. Ship-building, navigation and provisioning were all crucial to the vessel actually arriving in the New World, which was by no means guaranteed. In order to reach her destination, both skill and luck played vital roles. By examining a host of original documents, including especially logs of voyages, historian and sailor James Seay Dean has been able to construct a detailed nautical history of this early period of English exploration of the Amercias, when attention was still focused primarily on the Tropics. He looks at how the ships were built, how they were navigated in an age before even sextants, let along GPS, and what life was like for the crews aboard them. This is an important book for anyone with an interest in the history of colonialism, as well as of ships and the seas.