The North American schooner "Bertha L. Downs" was one of many large four-, five- and six-masted schooners which were built on the banks of the Kennebeck River at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. These huge wooden vessels were almost universally employed in the coastal trade and the principal part of this was coal from Virginia to New England. She was launched in 1908 and, after some ten years in the lumber and coal trade, was sold to Danish owners and renamed "Atlas". Like a number of her contemporaries she was able to make a profitable living through the 1920s and 30s. She was finally broken up in Germany after 42 years of work under five flags. This is the first volume in the "Anatomy of the Ship" series to describe a large coastal trading vessel - a ship type which holds a particular romance for ship modellers and those interested in the last days of sail.