The yacht America, for which the America’s Cup is named, is just one of 90 plates containing more than 130 ship plans in our book Selected Plates from Souvenirs de Marine: Ship Plans by Vice-Admiral Francois-Edmond Paris .
This book contains plates from the first two volumes of the six volume set “Souvenirs de marine. Collection de plans ou dessins de navires et de bateaux anciens ou modernes existants ou disparus avec les éléments numériques nécessaores à leur construction.”
The plates include more than 130 ship plans for warships, merchant & fishing vessels and small craft from all over the world, with a heavy emphasis on Europe and Asia. The book is indexed by plate number, type of illustrated vessel, name of vessel, and country/region of the vessel. The book also includes an appendix valuable to the novice explaining how to “read” a ship plan.
Vice-Admiral François-Edmond Pâris, born March 6, 1806 in Paris was a French naval officer who made significant contributions to naval engineering during the transition from sail to steam. Promoted to vice-admiral in 1864, Pâris headed the navy’s archives until 1871, when he retired from naval service and became director of the Musée national de la Marine (National Museum of the Navy), where he organized the collections and acquired new items. This work led to the publishing of what many maritime historians consider his seminal work, “Souvenirs de marine conservés.” The plates presented here are from the supplemental volumes of plans for this work, first published in 1882, titled “Souvenirs de Marine. Collection de plans ou dessins de navires et de bateaux anciens ou modernes existants ou disparus avec les éléments numériques nécessaores à leur construction.” (A Record of Navy: Collection of plans or drawings of vessels and of boats ancient or modern, existing or disappeared, with the numerical elements necessary for their construction.) These plates, ranging from vessels of ancient empires to the Golden Age of Sail, and including many ships of indigenous peoples of Asia, Arabia and the Americas, to are an important research tool for readers ranging from maritime historians to model ship builders
