Yes I know Steve, it was just the 2-6 heave thing.

Teribus - you should be able to get the book through Amazon (not that I'm an agent for them or anything).

Apparently they were doing the 2-6 heave thing on an episode of Hornblower. But then they had Robert Lindsey quoting Coleridge two years before he had written the quote. This was when a senior Post Captain was towing his big frigate by personally taking to the oars (despite the fact that he had at least 10 replacement boat crews available aboard the ship that he had no business leaving). What an example to set to your crew - that of an idiot. Of course, CS Forrester never wrote this episode.