Our "Sea Breezes" collection

Sea Breezes, Christmas 1955

Near complete collection from 1924 to 1939; complete from 1946 to the present day. Subscribed.

The cover of the Christmas 1955, with the 4-masted barque "Omega". This copy also contains articles on a record trip by the 4-masted ship "Falls of Dee" under the Red Ensign from Newcastle, NSW, to Coquimbo in 1909 and on the early steamer "Delta" of 1859

Notes:

Volume 1, Number 1 of "Sea Breezes - The P.S.N.C. Magazine" published by PSNCo, Goree, Water Street, Liverpool 3, was dated December 1919. Although it was the house magazine of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, it rapidly expanded to cover matters mainly pertaining to commercial sail. The title changed to "Sea Breezes - The Ship Lovers' Magazine" published by Charles Birchall and Sons Ltd, 17 James Street, Liverpool 2, in either 1937 or 1938 at the same time as the price went up from 3d to 6d per copy. Until this date, there were ten monthly Issues per Volume.

Sea Breezes, January 1936

They stopped publication with the October 1939 issue (Vol XXIV, Number 239) which was printed on very poor quality paper and with no advertizing [but a "Sea Breezes" column was published in the Liverpool Journal of Commerce through 1945] The Editorial was labeled "Au Revoir!" and contains "...the current issue of Sea Breezes shall be the last - 'for the duration'. This decision has been reached largely because our Editor, Lieut.-Commander J. Francis Hall R.N.R. has been on service with the Fleet for several weeks...." Other concerns seemed to have been that paper was getting difficult to obtain and that they could no longer send subscriptions overseas. Additionally, a notice on the back cover announced that Mr Daniel R. Bolt could no longer publish the movements and positions of sailing ships in his regular report "The Signal Station".

Birchall and Sons started again with a "Volume 1, Number 1" "New Series" at the beginning of 1946 - each "Volume" covering six months only, Jan-June and July-Dec, and the name changed to "Sea Breezes - The Ship Lovers' Digest". The content started to include steam as well as sail. [There was an experiment with an American edition during 1949. Some articles remained the same, but a section in the center was replaced with articles submitted by American authors. This was discontinued after one year.] In 1965, Volumes were increased to contain twelve monthly isses. The physical format was reduced from 9.5"x6" (~24x15 cms) to a smaller 7.25"x4.75" (~18.5x12 cms), which again increased to 8.25"x5.25" (~21x13.5 cms) in January 1968. The first colour photo on the front cover was the Strick liner Karaghistan in Aug 1973, Vol 47 Number 332.

In January 1999, starting with Volume 73, number 637, Sea Breezes, the magazine of ships and the sea again changed the format to 11.7"x8.25" (~30x21 cms) and increased substantially their use of colour printing - such a format being retained untl now (2021.)

A few extracts :

Collection: Robert W. "Bob" Davis Collection, with additions

Availability: 1,156 individual issues and indices; Vols VI, VII, X to XIII, XV to XXIV, 1-8 and 32 (2nd series) bound, others boxed, single see details

Indexing: by Naval Marine Archive (partial).

We are actively collecting back issues of this magazine; we have several hundred duplicates and will gladly exchange with other collections. Please E-mail us.

Sea Breezes Publications Ltd
Media House, Cronkbourne, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM4 4SB
E-mail: sb.enquiries@seabreezes.co.im
Website: www.seabreezes.co.im
Tel: +44 (1624) 696573
Fax: +44 (1624) 661655