At 14:24 10/26/2000, James Creech wrote:
>do you come up with these fascinating tidbits, like the no. of ships lost in
>storms?  Is this stuff in your head?  I am concurrently impressed,

That was from all causes, not just storms.  Much of it is insurance
fraud...and 100 tons is a pretty small ship in today's terms whether it's
talking about volume or displacement.  I got that particular datum some
years ago from the Times (London, not New York) Atlas of the Oceans, and it
has stayed with me.

Here's another one -- Exxon has a school in Grenoble France where they
teach their skippers to drive the supertankers.  They use 30-foot scale
models, which look pretty funny with a great big man sticking up where the
bridge ought to be.  These models weigh around 18,000 pounds and they drive
them with a 1/8 hp electric motor....

david

David Beierl - Providence, RI
  http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"