on the ocean

 

Thanks to a shipping locator website, I’m vicariously vacationing across the oceans. Cruises aren't for me, but I can at least enjoy the one that family members are currently taking, without having to go myself. Hours of harmless fun, a porthole to a new world of interest. I’m probably able to spend more time exploring the destinations than are those on the actual cruise. Whether in reality looking out to the Solent, the Irish Sea or the Bristol Channel, or via a small screen, across the Atlantic, makes little difference. I’m intrigued by the diversity of destinations, shapes, sizes, profiles and proportions of the vessels out there. And the sheer numbers: probably over 100 thousand across the globe. 

Although all at sea with some of the details, my family background is of the deep, and school experience was embedded in naval tradition. I was introduced to the contrasts between quinquireme, galleon and coaster in John Masefield’s Cargoes (1944). In music lessons I heard Charles Villiers Stanford’s 1904 setting of Newbolt’s poem Drake’s Drum. While a stirring song, it would no doubt be hijacked by post-Brexit jingoism today.   A guest of honour at a school “speech day” in the early 1970s was one “old boy”, Raymond Blackman, noted editor of Jane's Fighting Ships between 1949 and 1973, a seminal work worldwide. A school friend had a copy of this titanic tome which I remember perusing in wonder. Blackman used his address to promote careers in Naval Architecture. It would have been a lucrative profession, particularly as few had heard of it. If only.

Despite having studied physics sufficiently to follow fluid dynamics, buoyancy, Charles’s Law and the Archimedes Principle, I am still in awe of things that, on the surface, just don’t seem possible. Just as it’s a miracle that tubeless tyres stay in place on a car, the feeling is based on trust rather than science. On the water, the draft of a ship seems too shallow compared with the upper hull and superstructure, whether canal boat, Isle of Wight ferry, container ship or vast cruise liner. Ballast is key to defying appearances, together with stabilisers and a low centre of gravity.  Knowing about all that doesn’t stop me worrying about just how little there is below the Plimsoll Line.  Surely they will topple, susceptible to the slightest breeze. Of course some do, such as the Mary Rose which capsized and sank off Portsmouth in 1545. It is said the gun ports were left open, as were portholes on the Britannic in 1916. 

Aesthetically, some vessels just look unbalanced. They seem either top heavy, rear heavy, or more scarily bow heavy as if they will dive to the depths as soon as they set sail. And some are just improbably tall, particularly cruise liners when seen towering above the towns they are visiting. 

I think I understand why those fictitious ships that travel the firmament are based on ocean going vessels rather than aircraft. Typically, sci-fi space is shown in two dimensions, the idea of travelling the universe in three dimensions being too much for special effects departments, or for the viewer,  to cope with. More accurately, things happen on a single plane as if on the surface of a celestial sea. Thanks to artificial gravity there is only one way up. Indeed, if damaged in an attack the craft invariably “sink” to the bottom of the screen. Starship designs are like ocean going ships, with decks, naval nomenclature and hierarchy. If someone in the future were to add a verse to Masefield’s poem, it might be something like this:

Sleek and silent sleeper ship years away from Earth 
On automatic pilot to a distant base 
With a cargo-hold of life forms in 
Suspended animation,
Hydroponic vegetables. And empty space. 

Boldly back to Terra Firma and to the shores of Bae Ceredigion. There are plenty of marine mammals to see. The only downside to living here is the paucity of maritime traffic, if observing that “floats your boat”.  The pastime would be known as "gongoozling" if it were a canal. So on a wet afternoon it’s back to exploring the oceans online.  Now, Singapore Harbour looks interesting …

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I look forward to your comments. Also it would be nice to know where you are in the world. Thanks for reading.

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