A Good read

[Big Pete]

A while ago someone posted a couple of favourite books on here and I would like to post a favourite short story.

"The devil and the deep sea" by Rudyard Kipling, for someone who was not an Engineer it shows an excellent grasp of marine engineering as well as being an amusing story of Piracy and revenge.

It is out of copywright and freely available on line.

It was written in the days when men were men, and Engineers were proper Engineers. Long before hard hats, safety glasses, ear defenders, knee pads and rig boots.
Big Pete

[JK]

"It was written in the days when men were men, and Engineers were proper Engineers."

LOL. before woman wore greasy coveralls.

Now for the quiz:

What does

"The devil and the deep sea"

mean.

Without Google.

[Big Pete]

Without Google:-

The Devil is the longest seam on a wooden decked ship, parrallel to the Bulwark and one planks width from it.
Between the Devil and the Deep blue Sea means balanced on the edge in an uncomfortable & precarious position.
For those unfamiliar with wooden decks, the planks used to be cut on a curve and ran parrellel to the Bulwarks, and the straight plank on the centre line was cut to fit the butts of the curved planks. (Looked a bit like a child's drawing of a Christmas tree).

The Devil to pay (and no pitch hot) refers to caulking the outermost deck seam. After renewing the caulking (Oakum) between the planks it is sealed in with a layer of molten pitch (paying). To make a continous water tight seal the molten pitch has to be applied without any interruption, so enough pitch has to be hot (melted) to cover the entire circumference of the deck before starting.

I began reading C. S. Forester's Hornblower novels when I was 11 years old, and rapidly graduated to Mahon's "Influence of Sea power on History", and a lot of other stuff from Actium to the hunting of Force Z. More recently I have read most of the Patrick O'Brian books. So I know all this stuff, sad really.

All the reading gave me the desire to go to Sea, but I was blind as a bat so I couldn't get into the Royal Navy except as a Purser or in the Merchant Navy as a Deck Officer so I ended up as an Engineer by default.

Happy reading everyone.

B.P.

[JK]

LOL, I was wrong then ,I had it in my mind that the devil was the seam one plank away from the keel and the ship had to be beached on a low tide to caulk it.

[Big Pete]

Hi JK

Having a late night?
Maybe I'm wrong, a good dose of cynicism is always healthy.
I haven't checked Google.
BP

[JK]

LOL, nope that was last night.

I checked Google after your post. It was years since I looked it up when I was reading one of the books you mentioned and when I double checked I was wrong.
But now everyone knows it.

Okay we need another common marine phrase that has gone out of use, to get the grey matter going.

[Big Pete]

Fiddley, Spanker, Dolphin Striker, Martingale, snifter cock?

(Blame it on the keyboard, it can't answer back)

BP