Volume 1 encompasses the thrilling pilot schooners of North America and their British counterparts. Contemporary images illustrate a text that takes in the California Gold Rush, the development of the New-York schooner to the yacht America and beyond, blockade runners from Virginia, ice in the St Lawrence seaway, the powerful schooners of Liverpool, the mysterious but lovely shallops of Swansea and many more besides. Alongside paintings reproduced in quality color, often over double-page spreads, are lines drawings and photographs with detailed annotations. Reading the book opens the mind to all facets of sailing-boat development, yet the yarns of the lives and sometimes the deaths of the pilots themselves maintain a lively human interest.