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Naval history, science fiction, web development and the seventeenth century (not necessarily in that order). Jon Walters

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Naval Sketches
Naval SketchesJul 26, 2026
Admiral Charles 'Rough' Penrose-Fitzgerald
Victorian admiral who served as a boy in the Crimean War and as a Rear Admiral on the China Station at the turn of the nineteenth century. A fine seaman and a progressive officer, his career was blighted by his own lack of tact when advocating change within the Royal Navy.
royal navybiographical
Ringbolt Blog
Ringbolt BlogJul 15, 2026
A Test post
An optional description
Naval Sketches
Naval SketchesJul 11, 2026
Minotaur and Agincourt
These broadside ironclads of the Royal Navy were the flagships of the Channel Squadron all their active lives, from 1867 to 1887. They were every inch what the mid-Victorian public expected of a battleship; the largest ships in commission, the longest single screw ships ever built and spreading an impressive suite of sails on no less than five masts. And yet they were obsolescent within five years, and obsolete within ten.
royal navy
Naval Sketches
Naval SketchesJul 3, 2026
Collision off Tripoli
On the afternoon of 22 June 1893, the flagship of the Royal Navy's premier fleet was sunk in collision with a companion battleship, with the death of 358 men. The collision was caused by a minor, but fatal, error in the orders of the fleet commander, Vice Admiral Tryon. Although the error was immediately obvious to his captains, none of them took action to avoid the inevitable collision. Why?
royal navycollision
Naval Sketches
Naval SketchesJun 26, 2026
The Spithead Naval Review 1897
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations included a naval review in the waters of Spithead on 26 June 1897 of 165 warships of the Royal Navy. The occasion was a not so subtle demonstration of the absolute supremacy of the Royal Navy at the height of its power. But the seeds of decline of British naval mastery can be traced in the careers of three ships of foreign nations invited to witness this show of dominance.
shipnaval review
Sketches
SketchesJun 23, 2026
Test
A subtitle
Naval Sketches
Naval SketchesJun 7, 2026
SMS Kurfurst Friedrich Wilhelm / Barbaros Hayreddin
The first battleship of the Imperial German Navy to fire its guns in anger, but in the service of the Ottoman Empire, not the Kaiser. Spent 6 years as flagship of the Imperial Navy, and then deployed to suppress the Chinese Boxer rebellion. Sold to the Ottomans and provided naval gunfire support to the Turkish defenders at Gallipoli, only to become the first and only battleship to be sunk by a British submarine.
Kaiserliche Marineship
Naval Sketches
Naval SketchesMay 31, 2026
August von Heeringen
In 1897, Korvettenkapitän August von Heeringen was chosen by Konteradmiral Tirpitz to play a key role in creating the German battle fleet which kicked off a naval race with Britain. In 1912, when Germany had lost that race, the then Vizeadmiral von Heeringen was faced with the insuperable problem of how to win a war with the fleet that Tirpitz built.
Kaiserliche Marinebiographical
Naval Sketches
Naval SketchesMay 19, 2026
A Ramming Off Folkestone
In the summer of 1878, two German ironclads collided off the Kent coast, sending over 250 sailors to their deaths as SMS Grosser Kurfürst went to the bottom. The disaster led to four courts martial, a loss of confidence in the Kaiserliche Marine and a withering away of the German battle fleet.
Kaiserliche Marineevent
Naval Sketches
Naval SketchesMay 12, 2026
SMS Baden (1880)
A German ironclad coast defence ship of the 1870s which served as a fleet flagship for twenty years, well into the pre-Dreadnought era.
shipKaiserliche Marine