Britannia is a girl and so are her boats

A Maritime Museum in Scotland has announced that it has begun referring to boats as 'it'.  While the Museum Director says this had begun earlier, it was announced after continued vandalism of signs - where 'she' has been scratched out of information signs.  This is where everyone got involved.  It is part of the current social frenzy over free expression. The article in the Independent.co.uk demonstrated this with a nonsense sounding quote by the side against the change: "Political correctness is getting out of hand, the few are trying to bully the majority," said Harry Silvers. "There is room in this world for everyone." Not all cultures view boats the way the British do. It turns out that in Russia, boats have the opposite gender. The world authority on boats is a British firm - Lloyd's List. The weekly shipping publication which has been in print for more than 250 years,  abandoned centuries of seafaring tradition by calling all vessels "it" starting in 2002. It did it to bring the paper into line with most other reputable international business titles.   We have a simple black/white decision in English.  The week.com tells me that if we were in Luganda, "there are ten genders: people, long objects, animals, miscellaneous objects, large objects and liquids, small objects, languages, pejoratives, infinitives, and mass nouns. But in Chinese, Finnish, and quite a lot of other languages, there are no genders at all."  It explains this in much more detail for those of you who love grammar.   This same article says this:  The problem is that the Old English word for "ship" (they spelled it scip) was neuter. The Old English word for "boat" (bat) was masculine. So was the word for "whale" (hwæl). And they didn't have a word for "car" (since people a thousand years ago didn't have cars). The use of the feminine pronoun in those instances isn't a holdover at all! It comes from more recent attitudes towards the things referred to.   Little did we know that this week's angry mob would include the Admiral Lord West. Switching topics.  We have continuing news each week on Grimsby coyotes: yesterday two people were bitten by coyotes walking along the street in town.  Coyotes live on the escarpment and above the escarpment - and anyone who has a house backing on to the escarpment hears them howling at night. These biting coyotes are living in the South Service Road and Maple Street area. They started chasing people on the town streets a few weeks ago, so the newspaper reports and warnings have been constant.  People have been pretty surprised - we're supposed to be the dominant species in town.  They don't realize that coyotes have no such rules.  Here's my boat of the day:

The Biggest Boat

Many people are taking cruises.  This is an extremely popular vacation format.  They discuss which cruise lines have the best value  and offer the best packages for entertainment, meals, drinks, etc. Do you know that the ship Symphony of the Seas with the Royal Caribbean line holds a maximum of 6,870 passengers?  It is the largest cruise ship in the world and was built this year, in 2018.  It is 1,188 feet long and has 18 total decks. It has seven different 'neighbourhoods'.  It looks like it has eight stories above the deck level.  Below is a picture of the historical growth off cruise ships:   Symphony of the Seas Facts The Symphony of the Seas has more pieces of art on board than found in the Louvre Museum in Paris On an average 7-night sailing, over 60,000 fresh eggs are used on board On a week-long cruise, six million coffee beans are required to make the total coffee made on the ship During a 24-hour period on the ship, roughly 500,000 gallons of fresh water are consumed Compared to one eruption of Old Faithful, the Symphony’s 24 pools and water attractions use close to 100x that amount of water Information about the largest cruise ships is HERE.  Or another article is HERE. There were 26 million cruise passengers in 2017, and the estimate for 2018 is 27 million.  The industry has been operating at near 100% capacity.  It is a $100 billion industry. The trend of passengers getting older is true.  And the trend of millennials becoming a major market is true.  The cruise line U by Uniworld imposed an age requirement of 21-45.  That restriction was scrapped before the ships started to sail.  Industry information claims the average age of a cruiser in North America is 46.    I conclude with this cruise ship joke: A magician was working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The audience would be different each week so the magician allowed himself to do the same tricks over and over again. There was only one problem: the captain's parrot saw the shows each week and began to understand how the magician did every trick. Once he understood the parrot started shouting in the middle of the show: "Look, it's not the same hat". "Look, he is hiding the flowers under the table". "Hey, why are all these cards the Ace of Spades?" The magician was furious but couldn't do anything; it was, after all, the captain's parrot. One day the ship had an accident and sank. The magician found himself on a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean with the parrot, of course! They stared at each other with hate, but did not utter a word. This went on for a day and another and another. After a week the parrot said: "OK, I give up. Where's the boat?" Our picture today is luxury living here in Vineland, with a reserved table at the Watering Can, a landmark garden centre in Niagara.

Steam in Maine

One of the enjoyments of models is that they can be whimsical and creative.  So we look at some of the artistry on the model layouts in Maine this year.  The ocean theme was represented well with boats of all sizes.  In the second picture, the experimental steam works seemed a charming storyline with great detail.

How Many is a Thousand?

We made a visit to Kingston and the nearby Thousand Islands at Gananoque where boat tours take one through the Islands.  The tour is filled with beautiful scenery and cottages to admire. I'd wondered if there really were a thousand islands there.  It turns out that there are 1,864 islands.  They have criteria for what can be called an island. It must stay above water 365 days a year, and be at least 6 feet long. If you know of more criteria, let me know. We come to the origin of Thousand Islands salad dressing.  It was named for this area.  A local created the dressing and it was passed on to George  Boldt of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel ( he built the famous Boldt Castle in the area).  It grew popular and well-known in his New York hotel. We enjoyed passing by the cottage with the man on the balcony.  He was taking pictures of a model boat/ship.

Train Scenes 

Everyone so appreciates the pictures of train models.  I can understand this when I look at the work that goes into these layouts.  These photos are from the convention in Portland OR a few years ago.  The boat house is wonderful, isn't it?  This was in a model competition rather than on a layout.

When I revisit these models through pictures, I become aware of the composition of the models.  There are all the details that make up the scene - like the birds on the wire framing the little building.  To me, it gives the image a little humour.  In the welding scene, the welding action comes alive in the tiny blue lights.  It gives this scene motion and immediacy.  The boathouse, with all its supplies out front tells a story of the many activities involved in maintaining boats.

There seems to be to be a nostalgia in these scenes.  They are of times past when things were mechanical so were tangible - and so life back then  seems simpler.  

Boat for Sale

I drove to the Port Dalhousie Marina to look at the waves on the pier.  They were a great sight - washing right over the pier.  Port Dalhousie is situated quite at the end of a long bay so goes far into Lake Ontario.  Hence the great waves.  I was with my mother, so didn't take the time to go to the pier for pictures.  I did stop at the boats 'parked' in the parking lot.  They look like they've been 'for sale' for a long time - this wasp's nest told the story.

I did find some excellent wear and tear and will bring those abstract images to you later.