The Drydock - Episode 179

Interesting reasoning behind your imperial estimation. I'm tought to think in metric by our schooling system, but my dear dad tought me how to estimate a meter by using your body (backing your careful addition here :-) ). FYI a meter is by estimation equal to a stretched arm, measured from the fingertip to the opposit shoulder.

Mike Zitter

The idea is, the French privateer follows the raft and, all going well, does not discover the deception until sunrise. Meanwhile, Surprise has sailed off in another direction, and by sunrise, is far away.

Kent W.Fevurly

Oh yeah? Huh, I went to school in Farmville, howabout that. And yeah, I 2nd Bryan's Publix suggestion; I usually find at least 4-5 bottles when I look there.

WRT the Nelson/Rodney turret layout, the Japanese tried both ways. Initially, they had the second turret superfiring. See Atago and her predecessors. But then they made the third turret superfiring in the Mogami class.

Metric and Imperial I like most use both in my engineering life but what really matters is how you estimate and perceive a size - I always estimate in Imperial because I have an experiential feel for an inch or a foot as I tend to relate to how these measurements came into existence i.e. lengths of body parts (careful don't be rude). I then tend to relate my estimate and then convert to metric.

John Hargreaves

The new Agamemnon (Astute class submarine) will have the nickname from Nelsons ship which was HMS Eggs and Bacon (its tradition).

John Hargreaves

Wondering If it were possible to put the Indiana Class (BBs 1, 2, 3) PreDreadnoughts on the list to be explored. They were routinely referred to as the worst ships ever designed yet the did an awful lot of traipsing about for ships intended for Coastal defense. I figure they must not have been very good, but were they (In Drach's studied opinion) as bad as all that when compared to other Navy's first design attempts?...

I have heard the UK's new 70,000 ton carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales called Big Lizzie and Big Charlie as a nod to Prince Charles the current Prince of Wales. HMS Queen Elizabeth is named for the Tudor monarch Queen Elizabeth the First, not the current Queen. Nicknames for Type-42 destroyers, HMS Newcastle was the Geordie Gunboat, HMS Liverpool the Crazy Red Chicken and HMS Southampton (a Portsmouth based ship) was the Scummer.

Andrew Waite

The USS New Jersey has a video on firing the 16" guns that talks about the primer man.

Drach, do you have many 1/350 scale or 1/700 scale model ships? Your marathon drydocks are great listening while I attempt to construct them.

In Master and Commander (which is a classic) there is a scene where they are being stalked by the French privateer. They put a raft out at night with oil lamps. They then shut the lamps off the Surprise. The question is: why did they need to put out a raft??? Why didn't they just turn off any lights? How could the privateer track them in the night? I do not believe they had radar in 1803.

Billy Shakespeare

In the answer of the Battle of the Chesapeake, during the American Revolution, the statement was made that this was the pre-revolution French Navy which had a better firing rate. Was this reference to the pre-French Revolution French Navy?

Smokey The Bear

Publix. International Aisle. British section. Usually bottom shelf

Don't be too hard on Miyazaki, he's quite capable of drawing photo-accurate aircraft, when he wants to. His SteamPunkish "Battleship" looks like he took an earlier drawing of the Chinese Ting Yuen class "battleships" (he did a series of 4-5 page comic vignettes for an airline magazine "Iron Dragons" was about the Yalu Battleships) Some of these were collected in the "Daydream Notes" art book. http://halcyonrealms.com/illustration/hayao-miyazakis-daydream-note-artbook/ and caricatured it even more The Ting Yuen's had a triangle of turrets forward, making them very distinct. "High oh" isn't quite how to pronounce his name, but it'll do in a pinch.

Andrew Dederer

@Bryan Roper: You live in Richmond? I'm only about an hour away -- in Farmville! (Also, where can I find Irn Bru in Richmond?)

I walked into a local (Richmond, VA) grocery store to pick up a few Irn Brus for this. There was a Scottish clerk who noticed and asked, "How do you know about Irn Bru" in a very deep brogue. Thanks, Drach. Now I have to explain what a naval historiography youtube channel is.