Loose cannons

Any sailor who has to work in the proximity of gunpowder, knows the problems that can be posed by loose cannons on deck, and we have had the spectacle of several ships blowing themselves up in the French Napoleon flotillas, ships like the SS Gladys Nightly, a lean brig designed to sail fast into Royal Navy waters, which then linked up with an Italian man of war called the SS Santa Monica, and then there was the SS Alison Rathaus which blew up several times in friendly waters, carrying too much oil to be of much use, and then there was the spy ship the SS Adriana Lukasova, which also blew itself up in Portugese waters, and then the SS Jackina Ken which blew up against all prediction, carrying too many Arab slaves. And so on. 

Moscova 1812

Old Boney Napoleon was quite a general, a field commander that was a legend, but chiefly in his own lunchtime, because all of his glorious victories ground to a halt at the walls, those real walls, of Moscow. Oh yes a real legend among simple peasant French Maghreb boys of Tunisia, but then he had to face the Russian winter. He did not expect a million Marshall Zhukhovs to be waiting for him outside Moscow. So French legends in France, with a bunch of Tunisian boys, but then he had to face the real men of Russia. Hail to the glorious legions of Holy Mother Russia - !!

Well there's a waterspout

Well shiver me timbers me hearties, there is a fine vessel, the HMS Venerabile with its 21 gun salute for us all as we sail out of Portsmouth and the Sound on the Solent. And not far behind us is the new fangled steamship, the newly decommissioned Temeraire, an experiment that is not universally liked, as most of the sailors of the Line prefer sail and rope. 

Old Boney

Well rumour here in the Bay of Biscay is that Old Boney Napoleon didn't entirely trust his flagships and corvettes, which is why he appointed a scuttle man of war among the grey flags and old grey sludgery of the SS Haddon, SS Whitmoan, and SS Hombres, namely the SS Bon Viveur out of Helsinki, given that private property is an antidote in itself to all socialism, just to keep an eye on these big old grey tugs as they mowed down Boney's key faster younger ships albeit juniors in the French Navy. Dieu et mon droit - as we say for our next trip to Archangel in the Northern Russian seas, near the site of PQ-17. A French navy all united ? Not so, not so. These younger men n their captains could easily turned by a Turner beastie. 

Shiver the old timbers

Well shiver the old timbers, this old tug does creak a bit at night, as old old square riggers do, like the 4 corvettes of the Rigatoni class. Central pillars on central bulkheads. Such is the new design, a return to classicism though on Greek triremes, but necessary in choppy seas. Centralitas.