Jan 10
A note to UK-based folks, there’s series of documentaries on BBC iPlayer about old ships that built the British empire. The first episode is about the Matthew, a ship built and skippered by John Cabot, which set sail from Bristol with a crew of 18. They took a westward course across Atlantic in search of a route from England to China, but instead bumped into Newfoundland, which was then promptly conquered. Read more
Should you want some light and funny reading, I can warmly recommend trying Three men in a boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Written over hundred years ago (1889), it is remarkably timeless read about three friends’ boat trip along Thames and various giggle-inducing situations they manage to cook up. The book is full of wonderful wisdom about boats, for example. And ropes – oh it rings so true:
There is something very strange and unaccountable about a tow-line. You roll it up with as much patience and care as you would take to fold up a new pair of trousers, and five minutes afterwards, when you pick it up, it is one ghastly, soul-revolting tangle.
I do not wish to be insulting, but I firmly believe that if you took an average tow-line, and stretched it out straight across the middle of a field, and them turned your back on it for thirty seconds, that, when you looked round again, you would find that it had got itself altogether in a heap in the middle of the field, and had twisted itself up, and tied itself into knots, and lost its two ends, and become all loops; and it would take a good half-hour, sitting down there on the grass and swearing all the while, to disentagle it again.
That is my opinion of tow-lines in general. Of course, there may be honourable exceptions; I do not say that there are not. There may be tow-lines that are a credit to their profession- conscientious, respectable tow-lines – tow-lines that do not imagine they are crotchet-work, and try to knit themselves up into antimacassars the instant they are left to themselves. I say there may be such tow-lines; I sincerely hope there are. But I have not met with them.
That is so true. During the first training week it felt that every ten minutes we were tidying up the cockpit: coiling lines, springs, making elephant ears around winches and creating some order into rope-chaos that ensued any headsail change, mainsail reef or a tack. It was very strange – as you were just sitting there peacefully doing nothing in particular, suddenly all sheets and halyards were in a happy tangle as described by Jerome K. Jerome. The ropes, they MUST be alive somehow.
Oct 28
A blog post by Dr. M of Deep Sea News brought to my attention a few advertisements for Kraken Rum. If you’re like Dr. M and like both hard liquor and cephalopods, this is for you. It is also for those who love mythical monsters, steampunk, illustrations and marine history. (Skip straight to the end of this post for the videos.)
Kraken as described in The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures:
The terrifying sea monster from the legends of Scandinavia. Also known as the Krabben and Skykraken, the Kraken is described as being of great length and breadth with a number of fins and tentacles extending from the side of its body. The monster’s favourite trick was to encircle passing ships with its enormous body and drag them beneath the water. This action created a whirlpool, so that anything that escaped from its initial attack was sucked under. The Kraken has a taste for human flesh and was so vast that it could consume an entire fishing fleet – boats and men – at one time. The amber washed up around the shores of the North Sea was said to be its excrement.
When not attacking its prey, the Kraken lay on the surface of the sea and like the Fastitocalon and Aspidochelone of seafaring lore, it was often mistaken for a floating island. Unwary mariners who attempted to land on its back, and to light cooking-fires, soon learnt the error of their ways,. Despite their fear of it, fiehermen noted that large schools of smaller fish always seemed to swim before it, so that those brave enough to risk the Kraken’s jaws were able to secure a notable catch.
In the 1680′s a Kraken was reported stranded on the coast of Norway; while local tradition at Roysay, in the Kyles of Bute, Scotland, claims that a Kraken was washed ashore in 1775. The description in a 18th-century book, The Natural History of Norway, includes mention of how the Kraken turned the sea dark with a discharge of liquid, suggesting that what the author of this book may have been describing was either an octopus or a cuttlefish of unusual size.
This monstrosity also inspired artists of various disciplines.
Below the thunders of the upper deep
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous and secret cell
Unnumber’d and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the lumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
Now. Where’s my rum?
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