Model Boat Mayhem

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length.
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down

Author Topic: 'She' or 'It'  (Read 8279 times)

Jerry Hill

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 143
  • Model Boat Mayhem is Great!
  • Location: South Devon
Re: 'She' or 'It'
« Reply #25 on: September 16, 2015, 08:40:32 pm »

I wonder if Jerry has been to sea

Only on sea trials during 29 years in the marine industry, always slept in my own bed at the end of the day though  :-)
Logged

Xtian29

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 511
Re: 'She' or 'It'
« Reply #26 on: September 17, 2015, 03:39:40 am »

Hello


In French as in Latin there is gender for everthing.   A boat is "he" for a croiseur (cruiser) and "she" for a frégate (frigate)  - then if the croiseur is named Jeanne D'arc, it's no more "he" but "she" as the Maid of Oleans was a woman (or just ashes for british  %)  )  Well : the result is la Jeanne d'Arc

So I stop here as the word paquebot (liner) is male, the word France is female and the result for the 60's famous ship is : le France   %% 


Anyway in English, I don't care about LLoyds recommendation, I like and use "she" for any ship or boat, even if she's named HMS Churchill (S46) maybe I should change to  "it" if one time there is a USS Caitlyn Jenner   :embarrassed:


Xtian

Logged

warspite

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,757
Re: 'She' or 'It'
« Reply #27 on: September 17, 2015, 01:50:02 pm »

Yea that one would have a nasty surprise waiting for you under the waterline, a bit of a bulbous bow type appendage just back of the smoke stack.
Logged
Operational - 1/72 LCMIII, 1/180 Sovereign, HMS Victory to be sailed
Non Operational - 1/72 Corvette, 1/72 E-Boat, 1/72 vosper mtb
incomplete, tug, cardboard castle class convert

Positive

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 420
  • Location: Lancashire UK
    • Miniature Merchant Ships
Re: 'She' or 'It'
« Reply #28 on: September 17, 2015, 04:51:16 pm »

I can understand those in the shipbuilding industry regarding ships just as large machines, without a soul.    It is different when you sail  in them for any length of time though.     They develop characters and appear to live and breath even though they are machines.
They need to be well fed with oil (or coal in days gone by), or they will not work.      Electricity is pulsing through their wiring veins and the beat of the engine is like a heartbeat.     When I first went to sea, I was talking with the seamen on the poop deck of the old ore carrier Sagamore when they were discussing this same subject.    An old  able seaman went over to one of the small vents on the side of the deck and told us to listen to it.      It sounded for all the world like breathing, in and out.   He then said  to listen to it in heavy seas, and it would sound like panting, and gasping as the ship laboured to cope with the stresses.       I only did trials on one ship, an oil tanker out of Cammell Lairds.    We went up to the measured mile off the isle of Arran, returning 48 hours later.  Being so new, the ship had no character and was just behaving like an awkward lump of steel with an engine in it.     

But I sailed for 5 years in the passenger liner Windsor Castle, and 11 years in the passenger liner St. Helena, and developed a real love for them over the years.    I also sailed in 17 other ships, from colliers to passenger liners, and they all had distinguishing traits that were usually different to sister ships that were identical, but behaved differently.

Other countries may have different ways of looking at it, but I was taking it from the British point of view, held by most of those who sailed in them!

Doesn't matter all that much to me, but I regard ships as "she.!"      It does annoy me though when merchant ships are referred to as "Boats."        Warships are never referred to as boats.     Warships or battleships, why not "warboat" or "battleboat?"    {-)

Bob
Logged
Regards
Positive
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up
 

Page created in 0.095 seconds with 22 queries.