Transport: Ships and the Sea

Sixteenth Century galleys, rowed by slaves, hit 4.5 knots the first hour, 3.5 the next, 2.5 the third as the slaves became exhausted. A ship painted white is 12° cooler than one painted black. World’s greatest seaports in tonnage entered and cleared are, in order, Antwerp, New York, Hamburg, London. A ship’s consumption of fuel varies as the cube of the speed it attains. Derricks are named for anElizabethan hangman named Derrick who was the first to use a single-spar gallows. Oldest ensign in use today is the Turkish, dating from 339 B.C.

Such facts as these and a myriad more were last week offered to voyagers through the publication of a top-notch little nautical encyclopedia called Ships and the Sea, A Cruising Companion, written by Pay Lieutenant E. C. Talbot-Booth of the Royal Naval Reserve.* A fat little book, it has 750 pages, over 1,000 illustrations. Though compiledfrom a British point of view, it is international in scope, universal in interest.

Conceived as a Baedeker of the world’s ships and seas, it answers every question a voyager could ask a ship’s officer except “When do we dock?” Of special interest to sea-travelers is a section which does for the world’s merchant marine what Jane’s Fighting Ships does for the world’s navies. Consisting of accurate scale drawings of the principal merchant vessels of the seven seas, it enables any landlubber to identify any distant liner from the huge Queen Mary to the little Polish Batory.

*D. Appleton-Century ($3).