Professor Sean McGrail served in the Royal Navy as a seaman officer from 1946 to 1968; from 1952 he flew as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm. He graduated with a BA at the University of Bristol in 1971, and in 1978 gained a Ph.D. at University College, London with a thesis on The Logboats of England and Wales. In 1988 he was awarded a D.Sc. by the University of Oxford. Professor McGrail was Chief Archaeologist at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich from 1974 to 1986, and Professor of Maritime Archaeology in the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford from 1986 to 1993. Since 1993 he has been Visiting...