A treasure of a book! Starting with the eye-catching book cover, this is an outstanding and accomplished account. A huge amount of thorough research has gone into producing the fascinating and encyclopaedic 'The Master Shipwright's Secrets'. The author focuses on The Tyger, built by master shipwright John Shish at Deptford in 1681, but also details other ships from this period.
This book is full of wonderful and extensive illustrations, diagrams, photographs, paintings and drawings that make you appreciate the engineering, the craftsmanship and the attention to detail required to build a ship of this quality. We are also given an interesting insight into the negotiations involved in the creation of these fine ships.
Thank you to Richard Endsor, Net Galley and Osprey Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

FTC disclosure: I would like to thank Osprey Publishing for providing me with an advance reader copy via access to the galley for free through the NetGalley program.

This book was outstanding both in content and narrative! I love anything maritime so this one was like candy for me.

It was filled with interesting details of ship building, particularly centered around those built in the 1600s, portraying the star of the show, Tyger.

The ins and outs of what it took to acquire materials, calculate, design, and build a ship that was seaworthy at that time was just incredible.

Woven into the organizational and technical feats were personal diary entries, old documents with their characteristically fine penmanship of elegant swoops of Ws, Ys, and Cs, inventory lists, maps, and beautiful illustrations showing ornate designs such as cherubim and lion faces carved at the bow. The pictures were pretty to look at and the addition of people characters to show scale was a nice touch and I liked that the illustrative style was consistent with the paintings of the day.

I really appreciated the extensive research put into this, it was super comprehensive!

This book would make a great study reference and conversational piece as both a coffee table book and for any private or public library.