For well over a hundred years all around the coast of Britain there were located a series of nautical training ships. Often surplus navy wooden walls, the ships provided a means of educating boys and young men, while preparing them for a lifetime at sea. The more famous of the schools included HMS Conway, initially on the Mersey, and then at Menai; the TS Mercury, at Hamble, Hampshire; the Mars on the Tay, at Dundee; the Vindicatrix at Sharpness Docks on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal; the Worcester on the Thames and the Arethusa at Greenhithe. The Arethusa, converted from a sailing vessel, lasted until 1974 before she was purchased and sailed to America to be restored as a typical sailing vessel of the late nineteenth century. Phil Carradice tells the story of the training ships that helped keep Britain a maritime nation from their foundation to their demise as Britain's once-proud merchant marine declined in the latter years of the twentieth century.
