Dreadnought HolidayIn 1913 buildings, like destroyers, were still fitted with open bridges for better visibility and (possibly) to make it harder for people on watch to fall asleep...
Not many people know the Imperial German Army allied with the Jawas during the Great War...
OccasionalDucksToday’s episode of @TimHarford ’s Cautionary Tales is a good one for @DreadShips ’s #FailureFriday
Disaster Favours the Daring: Shipwreck at Honda Point - Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
In 1923, legendary navigator Captain Dolly Hunter led a squadron of warships into America’s worst peacetime naval catastrophe. The mission was supposed to be a speed trial, a display of the squadron’s skill. But it ended in a maritime pile-up, with some destroyers stranded on rocks, others sinking fast, and deadly oil leaking into the Pacific Ocean. How?
The modern HMS Raleigh is a stone frigate only, and definitely not sailing anywhere.
The cruiser HMS Raleigh was also very much not going anywhere, albeit for entirely unintentional reasons. Turns out that whilst fog is nice and fluffy the rocks within it can be less forgiving.
After a few years of their still new but immovable cruiser being an embarrassing tourist attraction the navy went back and did some, er, "environmental remediation" with a load of explosives.
"Jean-Pierre, have you finished le cannon?"
"Oui, monsieur. Real sexy just like you asked."
I've got no idea what's going on here - and as far as I can tell nor does anybody else. I'm pretty sure attempting to kiss the event to death is doomed to fail though....
petes_bread_eqn_xlsIn a blow to NATO, a mere eight years into its three-year overhaul, and after sinking in its dry dock, going on fire, having a crane fall on it, losing its entire crew to facilitate an illegal invasion, having most of its reconstruction materials embezzled and going on fire again, Russian media is suggesting that strategic rust reserve and occasional environmental disaster Admiral Kuznetsov might not be returning to "service" after all...
"Did anybody notice?"
"No, sir. Think you got away with it, sir. Might I suggest left hand down a bit, sir?"
One of the first turbine-powered destroyers, HMS Cobra was built as a speculative venture by Armstrong Whitworth. In 1900 the Royal Navy took the bait and paid £70,000 for a ship they didn't want, essentially for the pleasure of knowing nobody owned anything faster.
They needn't have bothered: 20 hours into its delivery voyage Cobra split in half and sank off the Norfolk coast.
That they never really wanted the ship in the first place oddly failed to mollify their lordships...
Vestas Wind. The navigator calculated the fastest course was straight across a reef over thirty miles wide and appearing on every chart since the 17th century.
The reef begged to differ.
