Broadside and Boarding: Small scale action in the Age of Fighting Sail

Forgotten epics of the Age of Fighting Sail, 1740-1815
There were few great fleet battles such as Trafalgar during the total forty years of naval warfare waged by Britain across this era. Between these major encounters, however, were myriads of desperate but small-scale actions. Each in isolation could be local in its impact but they were, in aggregate, influential at the wider strategic level.

This collection of over 80 articles deals with such actions, from furious duels between frigates to ‘cutting out’ raids, battles with privateers and assaults on land targets. And always, whether in war or peace, the struggle was constant against the fiercest enemy of all, the elements themselves. The heroes are mainly ambitious young officers and their crews, all marked by professionalism, courage, dogged endurance and will to prevail against all odds.

This is a book that can be dipped into at any point to read as much or as little as one wishes. Individual articles vary in reading time from ten to fifteen minutes. As such, it’s ideal for coffee or tea breaks, for when one is waiting for a train or flight, for delays of all kinds and when mood precludes a prolonged reading session. Broadside and Boarding deserves to be at hand when you may have little time available but want to escape into another age, a heroic and inspirational one, if only for a few minutes.

Though Antoine Vanner’s Dawlish Chronicles series of naval adventure novels is set in the later Victorian period, he has always been fascinated by warfare under sail in earlier times. Broadside and Boarding is his first non-fiction work. It builds on insights gained from extensive reading of contemporary accounts, often-obscure publications and formal histories written in the 19th Century.