Hi, I've always been curious about ships, aeroplanes and trains - not just the mean machines, but the secondary equipment too (marshaling yards, ports, derricks, fork lifts, warehouses, the laws and the various shady organizations involved, owners, shipping exchanges, etc).
Could someone suggest a few books that would give someone new to shipping, a broad overview of the entire industry? I don't work in transportation (not bought a stock or a share either) and until a few days ago, I didn't know the difference between port and starboard, or what the Cabotage law was. Aeroplanes and trains as far as I'm concerned are an even bigger mystery.
I understand the airy-fairy nature of the above question, so to help you, I've compiled a list of books I've liked, and am in the process of reading:
1.
http://www.pfri.uniri.hr/~bopri/documents/01-ME-2014.pdf (02, 03,04, etc)
to get a list of available chapters,
http://www.pfri.uniri.hr/~bopri/documents/seq -f '%02.f' 00 20|xargs -I{} wget -c
http://www.pfri.uniri.hr/~bopri/documents/{}-ME-2014.pdfto download them all on Linux
Unfortunately my favorite book of all time (the last week) is still very much work in progress, but it illustrates what I'm talking about. Very simple, non solid diagrams; extremely simple terminology; not overwhelming in depth but covers a large area!
2. Simon Baughen - Shipping Law.
very well written, and fairly awesome - I'm annotating this since I'm not a lawyer. It gives you a really cool overview of how to look at the marine industry from a lawyers point of view - so he's covered, Bill of Lading (the various types), charters, salvage. When any other book talks about a 'navigation officer' you know that he's the guy who handles loading, unloading and not just navigation - thanks to SB.
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Unfortunately that's as far as I got. Now some books I don't like, but which I feel are quite good as a reference (unfortunately I'm a poor judge of this):
1. Klaas Van Dokkum: Ship Knowledge Ship Design
It has great pictures, solid pics not line art. So it adds perspective once you have figured out the line art.
It'll probably be great for someone in the industry as a reference. It's okay for a newbie too, but it's too in-depth for a first pass. (i liked the cranes chapter though) but the smelly old diesels chapter was b0ring (volume overload) except that I always wondered why the ships funnel was a rectangular chunk and he's got a decent line diagram.
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I like something a bit practical. Eg: 'Shipping Company Stratergies' - i though I'd find something fun and interesting but he kept saying stuff like 'tanker markets there appear to be cycles' and I was like.. 'what market? where is it?' it would have been fun if he had cited some auction or 'Baltic Index'? where I could go (website) and check out ships being sold off, and see what they were selling for (like I do with ebay and hard disks)'
You guys seem to know all about the pics you take - you aren't just photographers, ergo I thought I'd ask here.