Can I also recommend getting hold of a copy of "seamanship in the age of sail". I've always had a latent fascination for just how they managed to manoeuvre relatively massive ships around well before the steam engine came of age. It's the only source I've ever came across which really goes into enough information to explain it to the limit of my curiosity. The page showing how a sailing ship was worked up and down a tidal river using various methods blew my mind.
And a copy of "The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor: Or a Key to the Leading of Rigging and to Practical Seamanship" (Dover has a cheap paperback reprint). This is fun because it, having been originally published in 1808, is a textbook actually used in the Age of Sail.
