No ship has ever made a more important discovery than the Matthew. In 1497, explorer John Cabot left Bristol on this little boat and 3,000 miles later landed in what we now know is North America. His discovery would change Britain and the world forever. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe sails the Matthew for himself and finds out just how this incredible little boat made a journey into the unknown and came back to tell the story.

HMS Pickle is the unsung hero of the British navy. In 1805 Britain had just won the most significant sea battle in history, Trafalgar. But how to get the message home to an expectant nation? Enter the Pickle, the smallest ship in the fleet, a little boat with a revolutionary new design that beat her bigger rivals back to Britain to deliver the news. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe sets out in the Pickle and tells the story of a boat that, against all the odds, delivered the most important news in Britain's maritime history.

The square rigger is arguably the most important vehicle in history. In the 19th century these boats transported finished goods and raw materials all over the world, transforming Britain from a second-rate European power into the richest and most powerful nation on earth. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe sets out on the Phoenix, a plank-perfect square rigger, to discover just how these incredible boats changed Britain and the world forever.

The Reaper is the biggest sailing lugger ever to fish the seas. Seventy feet long and capable of pulling in ten tonnes of herring in a single haul, the Reaper was an awesome beast that fed Britain at a time when she needed it most. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe sails her for himself and finds out just how this giant of the seas came about.

Many consider the Bristol Channel pilot cutter to be the finest sailing boat design ever. Fast, seaworthy and beautiful to behold, the pilot cutter is the perfect combination of form and function - a thoroughbred perfectly adapted to a life in one of the Britain's most treacherous stretches of water. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe explores the life of the pilots and sails a perfectly restored cutter to find out just what drove these men and their wonderful machines.

Looking more like a skip and than a boat the LCVP, or Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel, isn't going to win any prizes for beauty. Yet this one boat did more to win World War Two than any other piece of machinery. There were once over 20,000 of these little boats, but today only a handful remain. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe puts one of them through its paces and finds out how this boat was developed for that one momentous day in 1944.