Big boat
and non-stop replays of Mamma Mia (mutineers, on the other hand, get a choice of the plank or a lifetime of Roxette); the only landlubbering lack he suffered was the palpable absence of a rabid simian on his shoulder. Every sailor surely needs a sidekick; a creature to whom one can give a hearty kick in the side should the occasion (or simply the whim) call for it.
Götheborg (also spelled as Göteborg) is a city, the second-largest, in Sweden after Stockholm. The town's name means "castle of the goths", which serves as a reminder of its war-mongering, blood-thirsty, damsel-distressing, monkey-wrenching past some 1,000 years ago, when bleached blokes wearing horny hats and flaxen plaids partied and plundered all the way to Greenland. At some point, they succumbed to the smörgåsbord of civilisation and gave up pillaging for the pleasure of meatballs, tacky bourgeois furniture and unabashed free lurving. A little later, the eponymous ship was commissioned by the Swedish East India Company (no relation to any fashion label) as a merchantman charged with importing tea, fine China, silk and peidu mamas from the exotic Orient.
On the return leg of its third trip in 1745, just two days before the courtesan Madame de Pompadour (whose breasts were said to have been the model for the champagne coupe) officially became the mistress of King Louis XV, the vessel had an unexpected appointment with Davy Jone's Locker, sinking within sight of the harbour. There were no casualties and the ship had a well-deserved slumber until the late 1980s, when some people who clearly preferred history to geography thought it would be a swell idea to rebuild the boat and sail it all the way to China again (in other words a not-too-well-hidden excuse to have parties at every port of call).
The rebuilt Götheborg is almost a carbon copy of the 18th century original. Modern maritime rules, however, made it essential to incorporate two diesel-powered propellers, satellite navigation and communications systems and SAM capabilities and fire-fighting gear beneath the veneer of oak and pine. According to Siva, vessels entering Singapore's crowded port waters are not permitted to use windpower so the Götheborg came to its berth at the Harbourfront Promenade by Vivocity with sails furled. Permission to fly a little Jolly Roger was also not granted due to protests by IPOS and RIAS. And unlike their scurvy-laden predecessors, contemporary crew members enjoy onboard luxuries such as washing machines, lavatories, fridges and a party suite with saunas and jacuzzis for three. Siva also revealed that contrary to the maximum speed of 8 knots stated in the official literature, the ship has actually been zhnged to hit the waves at a puke-inducing 11.
Climbing up the rig and fiddling with the sails and yards are key tasks for the members of every 4-hour watch. A harness and safety line are modern concessions to safety, as the ascending crew would have their backs to the wide open. Other shipmates would form teams on the deck to manoeuvre the sail into its required position by pulling on the ropes and securing them to pins on a rail. A closely-related task is reefing, whereby rows of crew ascend to a yard and bind together (using what else but reef knots) corresponding reef bands (small strips of canvas that line the sail at vertical intervals) to lower the surface area of the sail. This dizzy work goes on regardless of weather and time, making night shifts in the open sea an adventure of nocturnal vertigo.
Really heavy-duty tasks, like yard bracing or anchor winching, is done with the aid of a capstan. This is a wooden shaft that spans the main deck and the gun deck below. Ropes are secured around the shaft and wound by pushing against a spike of bars that protrude out from the shaft on both decks. To picture this, think of the rotating device used to summon the kraken in a recent girly movie. According to Siva, it's a tradition for birthday boys and girls to be bound naked to the capstan and pelted with rotten herring for a day sit on the capstan for a celebratory round.
where barrels of Jamaican rum were stowed and a multinational bacchanal was taking place for a quick peek into the private lives of not-too ancient mariners. Hannah, for instance, is a mere babe (in both senses of the word) beside ageing apes and decaying ducks (guess how old young she is, the winner gets a date with my duck).
In other news, my unredeemed duck is currently two-thirds through Trilobites: Eyewitness to Evolution (which was acquired after a chance encounter with a hardcover edition at Page One), a recommendation by the crabbygirl whom one may not ask certain questions on pain of some really crabby punishment. Unfortunately, there isn't actually much information on these Paleozoic rugrats (for meatier stuff, go for Levi-Setti, which I bought at Borders while overhearing another patron complain aloud that the shop lacks textbooks) save a guide through their basic biramous anatomy (if I remember nothing else, I hope at least glabella and pygidium stick) and an insightful chapter on their tremendous eyepower (which, however, did them little good in the survival stakes). But the book is still rather recommendable, really. Woven around the wondrous tales of discovery and trails of pyrite are extended excursions into the arcane world of fossil-hunting, paleotaxonomy (monroeae and quasimodo are but two monikers bestowed by trilobite describers with an eye for anatomical counterpoint) and the world of natural history museums behind the public galleries, where the perished are published and crucibles of creation can give rise to evolutionary battlegrounds of explosive consequences. And the nature of science is itself – its self-begetting cycle of synthesis and reevaluation – is recapitulated by Fortey who reminds us that "as we learn more, we think of new questions to ask." And far from there being any last word or resort to agents beyond the realm of science, Fortey sees the work of scientists as a "continuous spirit of moving optimism". All questions in science, he notes, are but "journeys towards the right answer," endeavours of hope that find more joy in the endless pursuit of knowledge than the unlikely thud of dead certainly.
LOL, you've got a knack for humorous posts. Siva looks fitter and trimmer eh? Looks like saltwater is good for that otter.
Posted by: Ivan Chew | 02 January 2007 at 01:59 AM