Admiral Sir George Cockburn, Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, and, of course, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson. Decimating anything put to sea, the French could not even get out of port. Shelling all land based coastal structures.
Just wolves at sea waiting for anything French to appear on the horizon;search and destroy
Was this the pinnacle of Naval control/master of the sea?
How did they achieve such a clear domination in training, one would think their enemies would copy. Any highly recommended readings on 19th century British Sea Power explaining such a broad and complex subject would be appreciated, thanks in advance
The time of the greatest gap between naval superpowers is surely the modern age. The US Navy has nineteen aircraft carriers, far more than the rest of the world put together. Ten of these are the Nimitz-class supercarriers, which are twice the size of any other carrier afloat. The USN is also (I believe) the only navy to have significant permanent overseas deployments, with other countries generally only sending one or two ships each on temporary cruises, often in cooperation with the USN.
This gap really grew up during the Cold War, as the other major navies were either destroyed in WW2 or scrapped in the years following, while the US just kept building and expanding. I suppose that submarines are the only real question hanging over USN supremacy, as countries like the USSR invested heavily in submarines rather than try to match them with surface ships, but since the US has not fought a war against an opponent with significant naval assets since 1945, that question remains unanswered.
As for the supremacy of the Royal Navy, I too would be interested to know how it came about. There seems no obvious reason as to why Britain out of all the colonial powers should have achieved such success. Many of the reasons that I have seen suggested before, e.g. French crews being inexperienced because British blockades kept them in port, only came about because the British already had a massive advantage.