About Flat Hammock Press

Flat Hammock Press was founded in 2001 by two maritime professionals with a keen interest in nautical history and the literature of the sea. Among the missions of the independent book publisher is to salvage many of the maritime classics of the past and introduce them and the authors to today’s readers.

The principals of Flat Hammock Press are Stephen Jones and Robert McKenna.

Stephen Jones is owner of West Mystic Wooden Boat Company, which provides a venue for boat owners to work on their own wooden boat projects, and author of nine books, including Turpin, Drifting, Backwaters, Harbor of Refuge and Working Thin Waters. In a long career spent with and on boats, he served in the Coast Guard as a lighthouse keeper and life boat station crew, worked on lobster boats, and sailed West Indian waters. For the last 30 years he has been on the University of Connecticut’s maritime branch faculty, where he has taught courses on literature, the environment, and aspects of the sea.

Robert McKenna grew up boating on Long Island Sound and received his undergraduate degree from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He served as both a shipboard engineer and deck watch officer aboard a number of Coast Guard cutters. He earned a graduate degree in International Transactions from George Mason University, concentrating his studies on the global shipping industry. He has served as a reporter and editor for various maritime publications and is the author of The Dictionary of Nautical Literacy and the forthcoming "Worthy of the Traditions": A Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Coast Guard.