Rif Winfield has made a lifetime’s study of the sailing warship. He holds a degree in International Politics, and is a Fellow of the Society for Nautical Research. Besides a number of journal articles, he is the author of The 50-Gun Ship (published in 1997) and First Rate: The Greatest Warships of the Age of Sail (in 2010), and was responsible for bringing to fruition in 2004 The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889 (a project begun by the late David Lyon prior to his death in 2000). He is also the author of the comprehensive four-volume series on British Warships in the Age of Sail (covering chronologically all British warships between 1603 and 1863) and – with his co-author Stephen Roberts – a similar two volumes on French Warships in the Age of Sail, in the same series as the current work.