What Ship, Where Bound?

What Ship, Where Bound? takes its title from the familiar opening exchange of signals between passing ships and celebrates the long history of visual communications at sea. It traces the visual language of signaling from the earliest naval banners or streamers used by the Byzantines in AD 900 through to Morse signaling still used at sea today.

The three sections, Flag Signaling, Semaphore, and Light Signaling each trace the development of the respective methods in meeting the needs of commanders for secure and unambiguous communication with their fleets. Though inextricably linked to naval tactics and fleet maneuvers, the history of signaling at sea also reflects the exponential growth in global maritime trade in the nineteenth century when dozens of competing systems vied for the attention of ship owners and led to a huge proliferation of codes.