Arglebargle III posted:

Aaaah this had never occurred to me until now but they have to use expensive copper structural bolts because iron bolts in the hull would be corroded by the electrical connection with the sea through the ship's copper sheathing. I wondered why they used copper pins in the keel that incentivized the dockyard stealing it like with the Polychrest or the Worcester. They can't use iron in anything that might touch the copper sheathing!

Phy posted:

Kind of depressing there's basically one guy with an OSHA.jpg operation in the States doing live oak, but then I guess there's not a ton of call for it any more.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

bettany was too good looking and too tall to play Maturin

one flaw in an otherwise perfect film

Genghis Cohen posted:

I'm not sure that Dundas' wife is ever mentioned? We do hear of Heneage's 'tribe of little bastards' and his entanglements with various girls are mentioned throughout the series, so if he does have a happy marriage it's to a very understanding woman!

A Proper Uppercut posted:

What exactly changed to almost double the speed? Engineering? Materials?

From some of the descriptions in the books it sure sounds like there was already a lot of advanced engineering involved with ship geometry.

OpenlyEvilJello posted:

A sloop rig is a fore-and-aft rig with a single mast. Your typical modern sailboat is a Bermuda sloop (distinguished by the triangular mainsail), whereas I think in Aubrey's day a typical sloop rig would have a gaff mainsail.

A schooner is a fore-and-aft rig with two or more masts (I think I've seen as many as seven by the beginning of the 20th century). A typical schooner of Aubrey's day would have a fore and main mast (although these might be much closer than height than in, say, a brig) with gaff mainsails.

A topsail schooner adds a square topsail to the foremast and possibly the mainmast, improving performance before the wind.

Arglebargle III posted:

Sometimes it's guys stuck on a remote southern island with no rudder and no forge

builds character posted:

If you wear instead of tack you’re a scrub.

Huggybear posted:

Kestral posted:

but please tell me it happens in this book and we can put this whole storyline to bed.

Kestral posted:

Hopefully she becomes markedly less horrible to everyone around her once she's married.

OpenlyEvilJello posted:

Lister's article on sepsis and the value of sterilizing surgical instruments doesn't appear until 1867. I recall accounts of earlier surgeons preserving blood and gore on their equipment as a sort of signal of their professional experience. Medicine, uh, advanced a lot during the nineteenth century.