SS Nomadic: Titanic's Little Sister

A full and impartial history of the SS 'Nomadic' has always been on my shortlist of "Titanic books that need to be published." History Press's maritime history titles have always had a tendency to run either very hot or very cold and unfortunately, this one falls in the latter category.In short, this book is rather painfully superficial. The main text can probably be read in about two hours or less. None of the 11 chapters go into much detail; there's very little technical information, only a few paragraphs about her WWII service, and only 1 1/2 pages about the recent restoration project. A few of her captains receive capsule biographies, but there's little in the way of in-depth history. It tries to cover up that failing with lots of photographs and illustrations. While many of them are quite nice (there's some excellent color profiles of the tender, a few nice images of the interior, and some useful, if rather hard to read, deck plans), there's also an awful lot of padding, including grainy images where "Nomadic" appears as a distant blur and some average photographs of some of the liners she tended. None of the captions go into much detail, and most are only a few words long.I'm going to be nice and give this three stars, simply because it's the only game in town regarding the "Nomadic." It contains some interesting material, but has too much fluff and desperately needs an editor. I don't consider its short page count an issue; I read and reviewed Mark Chirnside's book on "Oceanic" last year, which was also 144 pages, and it's amazing how much more informative and in-depth it is in comparison. Maybe as the ongoing restoration continues, we'll get a more detailed book on "Nomadic"...

Informative and respectful to the memories of those who sailed and piloted the Nomadic as well as a fairly well detailed account of her salvation. Highly recommend.JH

A great history of a Titanic survivor.

Interesting and well documented story of a ship who escaped her death five times! Richly illustrated.

An interesting little book with many photos, most of which I had not seen previously. However, my enjoyment was rather spoiled by all the typographical errors and mutilated words/spellings. At first I wondered if the text was a translation, which would have explained it, but apparently not. Maybe the proofreader was off sick that day…..It would have been nice to have deck plans or at least a fuller description of the ship’s internal arrangements. How many passengers were taken at a time? Did Nomadic make just one trip out to each liner when they called at Cherbourg or was it more of a shuttle service? How long did it take to reach the liners out in the roadstead? Many questions are left unanswered.The mini biographies of some of Nomadic’s captains and the engineers concerned with the Cherbourg arrangements are interesting and do help to round things out. More about the years in Paris and her restoration would be of great interest.All in all, a reasonably good addition to the Titanic story but could be even better.

I was delighted to see this book and snapped it up being a collector of things nomadic.On the first overview which I tend to do before reading it in full, I found the presentation, photographs and illustrations amazing and the book is definitely worth the money for that alone.When reading the book in detail, I could see a distinct lack of information about the ship. For example, the ships construction details are missing, the whole Paris story is missing and replaced with pictures.Details of the ships changing arrangements are also missing such as why was the mast moved, why were the bulwarks altered or what happened to the engines are just not there amongst many other details.Another issue I have was the author seemed to get fumbled in writing this and reflected in poor description of events. For example he talks about the German occupation of cherbourg and how the French sank all the ships. When we think he is talking about nomadic, he is actually talking about traffic but he never actually tells us that and only refers to nomadic having sailed to Southampton after the german occupation when it sailed before. It took some time to work this out. I just found the way it was written overly complicated, confusing and a bit amateurish as if he was trying to sort it out in his own head and forgot to correct it after.Overall it's a nice book but not what I was expecting as it was more an overview of the subject matter with nice pics rather than a comprehensive book on nomadic. The market is still open I'm afraid but happy that it exists at the same time.I feel if the book was written by the likes of mark chrnside, it would have been a better product. My search continues.

Many interesting and rare photos but they are mostly a little blurry and could have been improved, I think, by some computer manipulation!!

This book is very well researched and provides a lot of new information which sheds light on some of Nomadic's more murkier past. I would definitely say that this book is the most well researched and detailed book on Nomadic out there and if you have a great love of the Titanic story, this is a must read! Not only does Nomadic have such an important link to the Titanic story, but she also has an exciting and eventful story of her own to tell! This book has done a brilliant job at sharing that story!

This is a fabulously well researched and informative book on SS Nomadic. As the tender to Titanic it has an important part in the liners story but also a hugely intriguing story of her own. Full of interesting information and facts this is a great read for anyone with an interest in the history of Titanic and the little ship that carried out her passengers. I would definitely recommend this super book!!