Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Cluin
Date: 03 Sep 03 - 07:43 PM

I doubt it very much. I can't even imagine anybody being able to work an auger while swimming (what do you brace (as in brace & bit) against) through what was likely oak or some other hardwood, in a moving boat's hull, in the midst of a battle, enough to do some actual structural damage or a big enough leak to sink a ship which was designed to function with a hull partly full of water as ballast anyway.

But what the fuck do I know?

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: kendall
Date: 03 Sep 03 - 07:44 PM

IF there were three holes in the hull, AND they were in a place that couldn't be patched, a ship could be sunk. However, the problem was MAKING the holes in the first place. That would be impossible with the auger of that era.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Sep 03 - 07:57 PM

Well, if EBarnacle's referance to a "naval history relating to the first Elizabethan era. Attack by swimmers with augers was a standard means of attack in that era" stands up, it would appear to settle that, at least in principle, drilling holes in a ship is possible.

Mind, the fact that a book says something like that doesn't necessarily mean it's true. But could we have the reference EBarnacle?

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Gareth
Date: 03 Sep 03 - 08:18 PM

Mmmm ! Historical note - Didn't the late Comander Crabbe have some success in this fashion, ( OK he used explosives, not an auger !)

Gareth

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Deckman
Date: 03 Sep 03 - 10:14 PM

Geeze Rick! I told you not to tell anyone. Here is one of my more embarassing moments being used as an historical benchmark! Oh ... the shame of it all! Bob

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Sep 03 - 11:16 PM

I can give you a reference to EBarnicle, Kev... we have had Christmas dinner (not quite on Christmas) for decades at the home of great friends, and frankly, he, as the inventor of a bottom paint for boats may be responcible for the loss of as many vessels as swimmers with augers.... (only kidding ya, Eric...) But than again his Barnacle begone (now renamed)... was the sourse of my ad... beluga begone, barracuda begone, barrier reefs begone... black sea begone, baltic sea begone, and a wake of begone destrucitons.... again only kidding Eric ol' chum... but when ya get to New York (kev), we'll hook you guys up for a sing (and a free can of boat begone... geeze Eric I can't help it... stop me please!!!! )
Larry

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 05:43 AM

Jeri - perhaps the cabin boy's tool was not so big when he was swimming - it only attained it's maximum size when he reached the enemy ship and started thinking about the captain's daughter !

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 05:49 AM

Now, if the auger holes caused the ship to list, and she was unstable already - for any or all of the reasons above ....

Captain James Cook used fothering to save the "Endeavour" when she struck the Great Barrier Reef off the site of what is now Cooktown in 1770.

After all this - I'm bored with augers.

:-)

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 06:13 AM

The nine holes the lad drilled with whatever could have been drilled to start or spring the hull planking. If that was done at the for'd end of the planks, the flow of water over the hull would assist in tearing the hull open. The ship would founder and founder quickly, if she was at action stations, the Captain of the ship would have to take men away from sailing the ship, and manning her armament to man the pumps.

Charley: "...if that cabinboy had succeeded in drilling a hole beneath the Golden Vanity's waterline, he would have been drown by the bilge water pouring out! Vile stuff, that bilge water."

If that were the case the "Golden Vanity" was already in major trouble. For the bilge water to flow out of the hull the head of water inside the hull would have to be greater than the head of water outside.

The "Royal George" sank off Portsmouth (Spithead Naval Anchorage in the Solent), not Plymouth, in 1782. She was heeled over to make repairs to hull damage, this was done by moving cannon from the starboard side to the port side of the vessel. Structural failure in severely rotten framing due to the additional weight caused the vessel to sink. She was partially salvaged in 1840 by divers using early versions of the Seibe deep diving dress and helment (the forerunner of Standard Diving Gear)

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: kendall
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 08:07 AM

You are jumping to the holes, and going from there. I still say, the augers of that era were so made that they required a lot of pressure to start them into the wood. Underwater, he could not apply any pressure at all. The whole idea is silly.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 09:20 AM

I have foolishly loaned the book out and don't recall the title. NO, NO, not the cat...ANYTHING but the cat!!!

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 10:25 AM

Kendall,

Fair point about the augers of the period - what about the "little tool just made for the use" as the line runs in one of the versions?

The nine holes made all at once sounds more than a bit far-fetched, but the question asked was could you sink a ship by drilling nine holes in the hull - the answer to that question is yes if you drill the holes to destroy the dowling holding the planks to the frames and ribs of the hull. Lots of variables come into the equation, actual state of the vessel's hull, marine growth, pressure points along the hull, too silly for words, it might be, but impossible, it is not.

As to what can be achieved by a free swimmer on the hull of a ship at sea. I can remember reading a book about the China Clippers and some of the jury rigged repairs they managed to carry-out to hulls and rudders were quite amazing, in most cases way could not be taken off the ship as they had to maintain some sort of heading into sea.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 11:18 AM

Teribus would appear to be correct in his critique of my remarks above, as supported by this verse below:

A Sailor's Yarn

(By J. J Roche, Circa 1890
From A Nonesense Anthology)

As narrated by the second mate to one of the marines


They bored a hole beneath her line
To let the water out,
But more and more with an awful roar,
The water in did spout...

Still, I remain concerned that if this wholistic theory for the sinking of the "Golden Vanity" holds water, it does not augur well for our naval fleet in the Persian Gulf. Perhaps, someone should warn a responsible authority. Calling Admiral Poindextor!

However, the "Golden Vanity" I'm most familar with is still safe, if not exactly sound, stored in the cellar of our barn in Maine. My parents commissioned this 12-foot skiff for myself and my brother back in the early 1950's. She did noble service as we cleared the cove of pirates, summer vacationers, and short lobsters.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 11:23 AM

You can use bouyancy to come up into the hull from below. I have worked cleaning hulls from below, and although it is not fun or easy, it is possible; but that is not the same amopunt of pressure needed to torque a brace into English oak. You could start the tip (if the augur had such) but then when you needed to "put your back into it" there would be nothing to lean against and you'd be slopping all over. Easy to imagine, but it would not be easy to do, at all.

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: InOBU
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 11:37 AM

Hi Tiberius.... problem that stikes me about springing planking, is that the water pressure holds the planks in, how many times have we all seen planks fall out of a wooden boat as soon as it is hauled, when the water pressure was the only thing holding the plank in place once the fastenings rot out? Seems that a hole is thing... Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Nerd
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 12:22 PM

Cattail,

the problem with your analysis is that if a boat is five times "as big as" (i.e. five times as long, and five times as wide, and five times as high as) another ship, then its volume is about 125 times as great. Thus, a ship 5 times larger in each dimension would require 125 times as much water to fill it up. So if it took a little boat five minutes it would take the larger one roughly 625 minutes, or ten and a half hours...

Add to this the fact that the shape of a ship's hull is different from that of a small boat, exactly because the ship is made for carrying large amounts of stuff around. (The ship needs to be mostly filled with heavy stuff and still have enough buoyancy to float, which requires a greater volume). So it would almost certainly be of greater volume than simply an expanded version of a 20' boat.

This of course adds another wrinkle to the tale. Another factor on which this sinkage might depend: how much heavy stuff was in the Turkish Robbery? If she was sailing high, she would have longer to go before foundering...

BTW, I still vote no on whether this is likely, but as Teribus says (and as I said in the very first response), yes on whether it is, strictly speaking, possible. IF the boy could swim there without being detected, AND he used not an augur but some other tool like a saw, AND he was extremely skillful or lucky, so that his holes had a much greater effect together than they would have had individually (eg. Teribus' "if you drill the holes to destroy the dowling holding the planks to the frames and ribs of the hull") AND he remained undetected and unfrozen and unshot (not to say undead) during this time, AND the crew was for some reason unable to pump out the water or patch the hole, THEN he might have a hope of sinking a ship in this manner.

I do not think this was a method of sinking ships in the Elizabethan era, though as Ebarnacle says, it may have been "a standard method of attack." Remember, the goal in fighting a ship is often not to sink it but to force its crew to surrender so that you can take the ship for yourself. By drilling holes you could divert the crew from fighting, and toward pumping and patching, giving yourself an easier job. Once you had subdued the crew, you could then repair the ship. But whether it was used to SINK ships? Of that I remain skeptical!

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: kendall
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 12:37 PM

...It's not a matter of where it grips it!!!

Look, it would be impossible to get the leverage needed to START the auger as has been pointed out, there is nothing to brace yourself, no way to apply the necessary pressure. It's one of those things that look good on paper, but fall through in practice.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 01:05 PM

Well, Kendall, some of those old vessels had low strakes along the hull, eh? Mebbe he could tuck up under one of those and leverage his position enough to bore holes three, or however many. But it isn't bloody likely.

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Jeri
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 01:35 PM

There is one MAJOR assumption which may be unfounded: the cabin boy bored the holes from the outside of the ship.

There is some indication that he might have done it from the inside.
"While some of them were playing cards and some were shaking dice
He saw their dark eyes glitter as the water it rolled in," from one version. I've also seen versions that seem to indicate he got BACK into the water to swim back ("then down upon his breast").

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: GUEST,Skip Henderson
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 01:42 PM

Yes Aloysis, you can really sink a ship or boat "with a brace and auger" as one version of the Golden Vanity goes; particularly if you were to drill holes at or below the waterline behind the interior lining of the hull of a wooden ship called longitudinal stringer,or the ceiling or foot planking. Said lining would make it nearly impossible to get at the leak from inside the hull and after a certain time the inside water level would preclude any other course than to abandon ship. I have also personal knowledge of a cabin cruiser sunk by a disgruntled partner with a .45 cal. automatic, but that's another yarn.
Cheers,
Skip

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 04:44 PM

I know it's thread creep, but I've sunk a few fishing vessels by merely looking at them cross eyed. There are some boat owners who purchase and then use boats 'til they sink.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Reiver 2
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 05:21 PM

One bit of clarification: I keep seeing references to the sinking of the Golden Vanity. In the version I'm familiar with (I haven't taken the time to look at all the others) the Golden Vanity is the ship of the "lovely Captain" and the luckless cabin boy. The ship that he sinks (even though I think the sinking as described wouldn't have been possible) is identified only as "the Spanish enemy" -- a ship that is not given a name. (Oh, yes, it could have had the name "Spanish Enemy", but that hardly seems a likely name for a ship -- especially if the Golden Vanity is an English ship -- the song is English, right? -- and if the event was around the time of the Spanish Armada, eh?) BTW in the version I have, there is no mention of a battle going on -- only that they "feared she might be taken". I always envisioned that the event in the song took place at night, or in a dense fog with the ships becalmed -- the "lovely Captain" aware of the nearness of the enemy ship, which was not aware of the Golden Vanity's presence, but would notice the becalmed ship and "take her" when daylight returned or the fog lifted. Always fun to open a few new cans of worms.

Reiver 2

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 05:52 PM

The two vessels would be about the same general scheme, anyway. Skip, how do you address the leverage problem to make the holes in the first place?

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 06:24 PM

In many of the versions it is explicitly stated that the auger was a special tool -- it was fitted for the use, it bored three or nine holes at once, etc. This suggests that at least some of the contributors to this song were aware that no ordinary auger would do the job. That a cabin boy would happen to have such a specialized weapon (presumably invented by himself) is implausible, but so is a lot of this story. I envision a sort of box with however many auger bits geared together, fastened to the hull with lag screws, driven with a large crank, and provided with a handle to hold on to while cranking it. All this, of course, while holding one's breath.

As a couple of people way back in this thread pointed out, many modern auger bits (and so, perhaps, this one, if the cabin boy was that clever) have a tapered screw on the front, which, if it holds, will drive the auger forward if you can just manage to rotate it.

I, too, had always imagined that the holes were somewhere that was hard to get at from the inside -- even once the crew were distracted from their games.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 06:36 PM

Even if the alleged Elizabethan swimmers were not expecting to actually sink the ships, they'd still have had to be able to drill the holes, so if it's true they existed, it must be possible to do that much.

And once the first hole is even partially drilled, that provides somewhere to insert a pivot you could use to enable you to turn the auger in the next hole.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Gareth
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 06:56 PM

Hmmm ! - refer to C S Forester - "Hornblower in the West Indies"

The capture of the Slaver "Estrela de Sud" (SP) was effected by the fastening of a drough (Sea Anchor) to the rudder by a swimmer whilst moored in a Spanish Harbour on the Main. An Auger was involved in the planning.

Fiction follows Folk, or Folk follows Fiction ???

BTW Forester was recognised as a reasonably accurate Naval Historian.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: kendall
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 07:08 PM

Sigh. I give up.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 07:11 PM

I hear ya, Capn. Maybe these guys never scrubbed a hull from underneath?

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Cattail
Date: 04 Sep 03 - 07:21 PM

Hi all!

What a good thread, really makes one think doesn't it?

Hows about if he drilled several small holes in a circle, and then
levered the resultant circle out? This would get us away from the
argument of amount of work, leverage, torque etc required to do the
job as it would be much easier to turn a small auger than a large
one and could result in a rather large hole in a ships side.

Also, using a standard type of carpenters brace with a large nail
hammered into the hull *might* give enough leverage, if you held
the nail with one hand, and turned the brace with the other whilst
it was being held between your side or chest and the hull.

Incidentally I work at a place where they are still making 10' gates,
window frames etc, out of oak. the timber used in the gates usually
has some quite good cracks in it (or cracks later) which could make
a good start for an auger.

Another thought, these ships were quite high out of the water, and
were also round hulled (as against hard chine), so that even a small amount of water in them could possibly cause a capsize, given that it all went to one side of the vessel.

All supposition of course but.......

cheers for now.

Cattail !

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: LadyJean
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:55 AM

I don't know about the Sealed Knot, but I've beento reenactments at St. Marye's Citye, where The Maryland Dove sails out into the bay. There's one next month. It's worth seeing.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: old moose
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 01:39 AM

I would say,dammned unlikely. When I was a lad of ten and eleven my dad was building us a log cabin down in the woods in Oregon. He was doing it in a first class style using two sided cants and pinning all the corners. doors and window with trenails--wooden pins an inch or so in diameter. My brother and I using my grand dad's brace, couldn't have weighed more than three pounds or so, and an auger one and a sixteenth in size drilled all those holes, admittedly in in fir and hemlock, semi-seasoned, not seasoned oak, or teak or some other ship building timber, but from direct experience, (I could swim in those days too, and cabin boys in the suixteenth century were often ten to twelve years of age, hell, right up into the twentieth century they were often that old,) (not that I ever tried to carry an auger,but I used to try to carry two large rocks and bang 'em together to make peoples' ears pop) it ain't gonna be did. Heck git yer graddad's brace and a half inch auger and a scrap pi8ece of olg oak three or four inches thick and lean on the auger. Nope, wouldn't work. Wouldn't work. Put it all down to poetic license el moose p.s. ASk the deckman about this business of drilling with a brace and auger, in his line of work I'll bet he knows. which is no doubt why he uses power tools.My dad switched as soon as the firsr hand held electric drill motor came out.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 03:02 AM

Very good point Jeri.

On the subject of assumptions, Amos - 04 Sep 03 - 07:11 PM

"I hear ya, Capn. Maybe these guys never scrubbed a hull from underneath?"

Certainly in my own case, you might be on very shakey ground on that one. Others related to a couple of well known "folk" songs:

- The assumption by many that the Pte William McBride of "No Mans Land" fame was Irish - odds are more likely that he was not.

- The assumption that the song Arthur McBride, is Irish and was written by someone who had successfully evaded enlistment. That song sounds like classic barrack-room black humour and wishfull thinking. Earliest recollection of the song was in the South West of England in the 1820's (1826 seems to ring a bell from a thread on the subject).

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 09:45 AM

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 09:52 AM

I did say "maybe", T, but I am glad to hear another Catter has worked bottoms.

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 11:50 AM

I heard ya Kendall.

Rick

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 11:58 AM

The odds are that Pvt William McBride simply wasn't.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Phot
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:16 PM

The arguments about torque reaction seem to be ranting on and on, just remember that water is eight times denser than air, which, giving the drag factor of the human body would enable said cabin boy quite a bit of leverage.

Ah sod it! 250Lbs of Torpex should do the trick!!

Wassail Chris

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:47 PM

Phot:

When you work an augur on land, you are NOT pushing against the air for your leverage. You are pushing through your back and legs against the earth.

Try doing work while floating sometime and you'll see what I mean...

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: HuwG
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:55 PM

I have been reading (all right, skimming) every source I can lay my hands on, and the following possibilities present themselves:

1. In < href="http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=62576&messages=87#1012367">Gareth's post above re. Horblower's capture of the "Estrella del Sur". Apparently, the swimmers detailed for the job of knobbling the "Estrella" used knives to pry the copper off one of the rudder braces below the waterline, then used an auger to drill a hole large enough to pass a stout line through, to which the drogue was attached. Since this was underneath the ship's counter, I suppose it possible that they could find rudder pintles and other projections from the ship's hull to brace themselves against while they pried and drilled.

2. In the case of the "Golden Vanity", we may all have overlooked one possibility; that the Spanish or whatever enemy vessel sunk by the cabin boy was grounded at low tide (happens a lot in the Low Countries). This would explain why her crew had leisure to play snap, or snakes and ladders, or whatever. The cabin boy could stand on a solid bottom and work against a similarly immovable ship's hull. After a few hours, the tide comes in, glug, glug, glub, bubble.

3. The ship's crew in life belts ? When were these introduced ? It could give us a "not-before" date for this song, unless the dreaded "folk process" added this little touch over the course of time.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:57 PM

the version I know best has the Spanish enemy "lay"-ing along the Lowland sea just before sunk rather then "sailing"

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 01:19 PM

HuwG:

Your "grounded on a Dutch bar" hypothesis is the first one I've heard that sounds even feasible; but I am sorry to say it seems to me such a dramatic component of the story would not have been dropped out of the story even by the most ruthless Folk Process.

(The most ruthless folk process is the one that says, "Folk you and the horse you came in on!")


A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 02:12 PM

Only one problem with that: if the Spanish enemy was grounded, why couldn't the Golden Vanity, Sweet Trinity, Merry Golden Tree, Turkey Revelry, or whatever, 1) if feeling bloody-minded, just lob a cartload of cannon balls at it in the usual manner, thus rendering it unable to sail anywhere when the tide rose; or 2) simple raise a middle digit and sail blithely off while letting a chorus of Bronx cheers waft across the water on the breeze?

'Course it wouldn't be much of a story then. . . .

But then again, if both ships were grounded, that would change things. But that's reading quite a bit into it, and one would think that anything that important would have been mentioned in the ballad.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: kendall
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 03:18 PM

a one ounce swallow could not carry a coconut...

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Nerd
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 03:26 PM

An African or a European swallow?

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Peter T.
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 03:40 PM

I think the intriguing thing is to name your ship "the Golden Vanity". Is this not asking for trouble?

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 05:41 PM

Peter:

There is something to your question and something even more to the choosing of such a nonsensical name. Do you know if it has a birthright in English literature or some obscure religous or moral essay? What, indeed, is a golden vanity? Is it one that stands out from other vanities, as one of the deadly sins might? Whence does such a phrase grow?

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Phot
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 06:17 PM

Get real Amos, it was supposed to be funny!

Chris

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Nerd
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 06:27 PM

Is a golden vanity a bathroom fixture? If so, how about "The Silver Bidet" or "the platinum crapper"? Now THOSE are bad names for a ship...

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 08:32 PM

Phot:

Apologies for confusing your jest with density! :>) Would you believe I have met people who could deliver it with no humor at all intended??

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Phot
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 03:08 AM

No worries Amos!...........I still think the Torpex is the best soloution though! ;)

Wassail!
Chris