Armoured Cruiser Cressy

The complete set of builders' plans for the Royal Navy's Victorian era armored cruiser famously sunk during WWI.

The builders of British warships created a highly detailed set of plans for each ship upon completion. These highly detailed, multicolored drawings represented the exact appearance and specifications of the ship as it entered service. Today, the National Maritime Museum and Seaforth Publishing are making these invaluable resources available to the public through a series of books featuring high-quality digital reproductions.


This volume presents the plans for the armored cruiser HMS Cressy. Launched on December 4th, 1899, it best known for the disaster of September 22nd, 1914, in which Cressy and two sister-ships were sunk by a small submarine. Though obsolete by the First World War, Cressy-class cruisers were innovative ships in their day.


In full color, with many close-ups and enlargements, these plans make every aspect of the HMS Cressy clear and comprehensible. Extensive captions point the reader to important features to be found in the plans, and an introduction covers the design's background.