The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (162 page)

23. Stephen Bone’s
On Board an S-Class Submarine: Up the Conning Tower
. An official Royal Navy war artist, during World War II Bone spent time in a variety of warships to capture the realities of the isolated and often claustrophobic conditions of life at sea. Courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England.

24. The port of Singapore has been one of the world’s busiest for the past two decades, thanks in large part to its embrace of containerization. So efficient is this form of cargo transportation that there are no people visible on the ship or the wharf. All the work of transferring containers between ship and shore is done by solitary crane operators fifty meters or more above the pier. Courtesy of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

25. A huge catch aboard a trawler in the Gulf of Alaska. Judging from the two members of the crew seen toward the bow, the bulging trawl net is at least ten feet across. This picture illustrates the strain that modern industrial fishing with its sophisticated electronic tracking devices, mechanical efficiency, and phenomenally strong gear like nylon netting has put on fish stocks worldwide. Photograph by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Marine Observer Program; courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington, D.C.

26. The
Nimitz
-class aircraft carrier USS
Dwight D. Eisenhower
being replenished by the fleet oiler USNS
Big Horn
. The
Eisenhower
is nuclear-powered and the hoses leading from the
Big Horn
supply jet fuel for the carrier’s air wing, while helicopters transship dry goods, including mail for the crew. The U.S. Navy has long been in the vanguard of underway replenishment, which is essential to long-distance overseas operations such as those shown here in the Arabian Sea. Photograph by Darien G. Kennedy; courtesy of the U.S. Navy.