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Workboats For the World
by Robert Allan 2023
Workboats For the World)
Robert Allan, the eponymous third generation British Columbia naval–architect and proprietor of Robert Allan Ltd. has written the story of his Vancouver ship design firm. An unusual Canadian story of three generations of Robert Allans (all naval architects) who have emerged as world leaders in tugboat design.
Co–authored by the prolific and talented Peter Robson the book is a massive 590 pages. The two authors laboured over the book for several years to ensure its completeness and accuracy. It is a fascinating read, rich with detail and anecdotes, and encyclopedic in its coverage of a huge personal and corporate success story. It is highly readable and beautifully designed and richly illustrated (in both colour and B&W on almost every page. Rarely is a book published on the Canadian nautical industry that is so rich in detail and also so readable.
The book is not just about the hundreds of vessels designed by the firm but also about the founder, the owners and the staff who have worked together to make it such a global success. Published by Harbour Publishing it is a book which should be in the library of every enthusiast of nautical history.
Site News: May 07, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,798 vessel histories (with 15,646 images and 13,431 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.