Floating Palaces

Floating Palaces

Regular price $33.95 Sale

Floating Palaces America's Queens of the Sea Maine Island Mariners and Big Steam Yachts This is the story of families who settled on an island on the coast of Floating Palaces Maine, intending to support themselves by farming. Because this didn’t live up to their expectations, they were forced to turn to the sea, going in sailing vessels to ports all over the world as key participants in a global trading network. With the later decline of maritime commerce under sail, however, a new opportunity presented furnishing officers and crews for the luxury steam yachts of rich and powerful financiers and industrialists. By this time, the reputation of island mariners was such that, on presenting themselves for employment, they had merely to state that they were from Deer Isle, and they had a job. Lavishly illustrated, this book looks at the reasons why Deer Isle men developed such a high reputation as mariners, and the distinctive island culture of which this was a part. It then describes the huge luxury yachts and the men who served on these “floating palaces.” The story ends with the services of these elegant yachts in World War II, and the adjustments made in the postwar era by the men who had manned them. Paperback 203 pages