Writers, publishers and readers of maritime history are invited biennially to nominate works for maritime history prizes totalling $4,000, sponsored jointly by the Australian Association for Maritime History (AAMH).

The Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History book prize is named in honour of Frank Broeze who died in April of 2001. Professor Frank Broeze was one of the founders of AAMH. He served as President of the Association in the 1980s and was the first editor of the Association's journal The Great Circle. He was widely respected as a maritime historian and university teacher.

The Australian Community Maritime History Prize was introduced in 2011 and is awarded to a regional or local museum or historical society for a publication (book, booklet, educational resource kit or other media) relating to an aspect of maritime history of that region or community.

Both prizes reflect the wish of the two sponsoring organisations to promote a broad view of maritime history that demonstrates how the sea and maritime influences have been more central to the shaping of Australia, its people and its culture than has commonly been believed.

The 2013 competition will be the seventh joint prize for a maritime history book awarded by the two organisations. The first was won by Marsden Hordern for Mariners are Warned (Melbourne University Press, 1989), a study of the explorer of Australian coasts John Lort Stokes.

A reinvigorated prize was inaugurated in 2002 and awarded to Dr Leone Huntsman for her social history Sand in our Souls: the beach in Australian history (Melbourne University Press, 2001). In 2004 the award went to Encountering Terra Australis: the Australian voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders, by Jean Fornasiero, Peter Monteath and John West-Sooby (Wakefield Press, Kent Town SA, 2004). In 2007, Dr Edward Duyker OAM won the prize for François Péron – An Impetuous Life: naturalist and voyager (Miegunyah Press, 2006). In 2009 Professor John Gascoigne won the prize for Captain Cook: Voyager Between Worlds (Hambledon Continuum, London 2007).

Winner of the 2011 Maritime History Book Prize was Iain McCalman for Darwin's Armada – How four voyagers to Australasia won the battle for evolution and changed the world (Penguin Australia, 2009).

Equal runners-up were Ian Hoskins Sydney Harbour – A History (UNSW Press, 2009) and Professor Alan Powell Northern Voyagers: Australia’s monsoon coast in maritime history (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2010).

The inaugural 2011 Australian Community Maritime History Prize was awarded to the Lady Denman Heritage Complex, Huskisson, for Peter Crabb’s Shipping and Shipwrecks – Stories from Jervis Bay and its Neighbouring Coasts (2010).

Frank Broeze