Dreadnought Holiday

Worse things happen at sea, and frequently do.

If it's horrible and floats it'll wash up here eventually. #Histodon-adjacent (mostly) nautical nonsense.

Public Key

npub1qxgya5zc9pvufg99r3dwx3cun6v0dnxw6fagh00slwxll74twn8qlvqgcf

NIP-05 Address

DreadShips_at_mastodon.me.uk@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqryzw6pvzskwy5zj3ckhrguwfax8ken8dy75thhc0hr0ll24hfnseppqvn

Author Public Key

npub1qxgya5zc9pvufg99r3dwx3cun6v0dnxw6fagh00slwxll74twn8qlvqgcf

Show more details

Last Notes

2024-08-02 10:54:20

Lots of excitement around the Olympic rowing, but lane racing is somewhat sanitised. Give them a proper river to contend with
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/112/892/051/976/757/971/original/af5494955f245c2b.jpg

2024-07-04 19:25:38

- reply

@npub1psd…9sr7 And looking at Rishi Sunak, I see this year we're having a turkey

2024-06-28 13:12:42

Cape St George Island lighthouse:
1813 Built in the wrong place. Stays upright.
1848 Rebuilt in right place. Also built without foundations. Falls over.
1851 Rebuilt *with foundations*
1998 Slides off foundations
2002 Pulled back upright, placed on expensive new foundations, job done, everyone congratulates themselves, declared safe for posterity
2005 Falls over
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/112/694/348/956/608/897/original/52693f8258b56d1a.jpg

2024-06-06 21:54:17

Early #FailureFriday, but on the 80th anniversary of D-Day a big shout out to the Atlantic Wall, which consumed thousands of tons of concrete, huge amounts of effort, and was utterly bypassed in just a few hours.
And an even bigger shout out to the men who assaulted it.
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/112/571/858/969/160/630/original/7c6bf7946cfa0b35.jpg

2024-04-19 19:41:46

Opinions on Daniel Dennett will almost certainly vary, but this advice on writing remains a banger:
"Take courage and set out to write up the Great Discovery; if after many hours of red-hot thinking and writing you discover to your dismay a fatal flaw . . .  all is not lost. Go back to the first paragraph and write something along the lines of 'It is tempting to think that...'"

2024-04-12 10:52:48

A very good morning to the Spanish Civil Patrol, who have made my #FailureFriday mission easier this week by smacking into [checks notes] the runway lighting system at Gibraltar's airport.
What they thought they were doing on short finals remains a mystery, but the diplomatic protests will no doubt be nothing compared to the undiplomatic ones of their boss.
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/112/257/865/299/318/388/original/c1170f3bf075986a.jpeg

2024-03-16 23:48:56

Amazing how the Guardian website goes batshit at about three pm on a Saturday as the Observer articles start dropping and shoe-horned terfery breaks out. Absolute fucking clown show.

2024-03-15 17:30:08

- reply

@npub1psd…9sr7 Who knows? I mean, would YOU volunteer to open it?

2024-02-09 07:52:45

Permit me to suggest the claim on Wikipedia that His Majesty's Airship Number One "provided valuable technical experience for British airship designers" is an overly sunny assessment of the featured predicament.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/111/900/357/907/787/178/original/6e6d5c17528784d3.jpg

2024-02-08 23:25:35

Rishi Sunak's position appears to be that it's disgusting to claim he would be transphobic about a dead girl when there's so many live ones to be bigoted about.
Absolute fucking hateful wanker.

2024-01-23 22:56:43

I've been in a dreadful writing slump for a few months now, but finally cracked and just wrote something to try and get it out of my system. Amazed this story isn't better known...
https://dreadships.com/varyag-degrees-of-success/

2023-12-29 13:02:46

The AeroLift Cyclocrane. Apparently the product of an aeronautical engineer's fevered cheese dream, the entire body of the machine spun 13 times a minute to rotate the weird stalky wing things and thereby generate lift. No excuse for gluing engines to the top of the wings has been advanced.
Built to lift trees out of remote forests, it turns out nobody wanted trees *that* badly, and was promptly cancelled.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/111/663/791/853/513/238/original/671ae62034448263.jpg

2023-12-22 14:43:44

Ludicrous shat-through-a-tube future of transport Hyperloop was officially abandoned this week, proving once again that atmospheric railways suck.
The victim of unsolvable technological problems like "going around corners", Hyperloop nonetheless achieved its primary aims of attracting investment away from boring old high speed rail. Y'know, the stuff that actually works.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/111/624/569/946/983/889/original/15ed2a905c56c0c1.jpg

2023-11-03 10:42:11

The Chestatee River Diving Bell. Built to enable gold mining underwater and you'll immediately recognise that was not subsequently "a thing", as I believe the kids say. Essentially dropping an iron balloon into the river bed to poke around for gold is less financially rewarding than going somewhere dry and - rather more important, this - with actual gold present.
When histories say it was abandoned in mysterious circumstances please substitute "in extreme embarrassment".
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/111/346/140/814/344/626/original/4564ed9421b2fa04.jpg

2023-10-21 18:47:18

No #FailureFriday yesterday as I was busy successfully completing RYA Competent Crew. And if you want to know how that went...
https://dreadships.com/learning-to-sail-incompetent-crew/

2023-10-06 11:16:09

- reply

Not even kidding about the warship thing...
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/111/187/779/801/470/389/original/f3ff958585e9bfe5.jpg

2023-10-06 11:14:06

The Breitspurbahn was Hitler's project to build a network of 3m wide broad gauge high speed railways.
Understandably cancelled before it could reach Manchester, what with losing the war and everything, the ferocious technical challenges were not helped by the insistence that the network could also cope with lugging the odd warship about.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/111/187/746/741/434/066/original/bd819c9fdc443ff7.jpg

2023-10-05 11:14:42

- reply

@npub1f6u…y53z @npub1psd…9sr7 @npub1rkj…ufed but before vaping (and definitely before the indoor smoking ban) it was constantly walking into clouds of burnt tobacco and was infinitely worse

2023-10-03 18:32:39

- reply

@npub1psd…9sr7 Under-armoured (it didn't originally use HTTPS) and blown out of the water almost as soon as it entered the fray?
Can only be Menshn, surely?

2023-10-03 17:50:22

Just been reminded that the greatest naval tragedy of the age is that Jackie Fisher isn't around to rip it up on social media.

2023-10-03 17:34:50

- reply

@npub1jc0…sldg and the expensive flaws only become apparent when you've invested way too much into them

2023-10-03 17:18:37

Only just occurred to me that I don't think I've mentioned I'm also over at Blue Sky, for those that haven't already learned their lesson about centralised social media with sightly worrying ownership. Down as Dreadships again

2023-08-31 07:37:16

I don't know why people are so tickled by an article on ram bows being tagged with the category "boopable snoots", but here we are. DreadShips - writing the nonsense others only whisper...
https://dreadships.com/getting-to-the-point/

2023-08-20 19:04:04

Youngest has discovered ready-made yorkies can go on the barbecue.
Camping may never be the same again...
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/923/491/413/380/862/original/45322cde94d0dab6.jpg

2023-08-16 13:28:40

- reply

@npub1jc0…sldg @npub1clc…hg6f *whilst being *extradited* from Australia

2023-08-11 14:45:56

Sir Cloudesley Shovell. Marvellous wig. Fantastic name. Terrible sense of direction.
Banged unexpectedly and fatally into the Scilly Isles. Probably not killed for his ring, doubtfully warned of his true location by a sailor he hanged for impertinence, and certainly not the reason the navy took an interest in longitude because - guess what - sailors had long since realised navigation is easier when you know where the fuck you are.
Great name though. Cannot say that enough.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/871/489/736/508/579/original/1d909fb11020914b.jpg

2023-08-07 10:41:04

- reply

@npub1jc0…sldg if anybody tries to show Nigeria the xG I suspect we'll never find the body. Incredibly unlucky.

2023-08-04 22:46:37

Regret to announce I've been veering dangerously close to doing history again
https://dreadships.com/ukraine-back-to-the-future/

2023-08-04 11:57:37

Positioned somewhere to the far left on the bell curve of sanity, this here is Big C.
It's just over a metre long. It's designed to cross the Atlantic. And those are two sentences that don't belong together.
This nautical hi-vis wheelie bin is in fact a highly sophisticated sailing machine, and nothing about its safety can be inferred from the fact it almost immediately developed a leak, returned to port, and fell apart as they lifted it back out of the water.
Glorious stuff.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/831/154/876/167/921/original/f9064410dbbc42e7.jpg

2023-07-28 12:08:59

Model of Thomas Meriton's spring-shanked anchor, a concept that - unpromisingly for an anchor - sank without trace.
Modern yachts use a snubber to damp the forces from an anchor. They do not use a half-baked maritime pogo stick.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/791/613/633/210/872/original/3d4a33fc9942367c.jpg

2023-07-14 11:09:40

Japanese protected cruiser Unebi, which vanished during delivery from France in 1886 - a failure that might be related to the fact it was built with the usual happy-go-lucky attitude to stability that seems to have plagued French yards at the time.
Despite showing alarming rolling tendencies even in calm seas, Wikipedia suggests the metacentric height - loosely, how quickly it wants to come upright - was never measured. Perhaps on the basis everyone was too scared to ask...
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/712/057/054/922/281/original/a08a572f1b43249d.jpg

2023-07-14 10:18:45

- reply

@npub1psd…9sr7 if we'd paid her that rate to do absolutely nothing in her two months in office we'd be billions ahead, so I can see how it might work...

2023-07-11 18:30:56

- reply

@npub1psd…9sr7 I'm reliably told Edinburgh once had a Dick Brewery, so...

2023-07-07 07:40:47

Perfectly Pringular Russian royal yacht Livadia, launched today in 1880 and laid up in 1881. Not a success then.
Apparently designed with a skirt to stop anyone getting overheated at the sight of its ankles, the overly oval vessel was reputedly very stable but the shallow draft caused terrible slamming in waves that opened up the seams. Dry docks as wide as they were long being in short supply, repair was difficult and the ship quickly retired.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/671/596/342/302/030/original/b9fea70e9b85482f.jpg

2023-07-02 08:27:00

Been a while since I set up this account and ran the various scraper tools (which I assume no longer run). If I ought to be following you here do say something!

2023-06-30 13:51:40

HMS Glatton. A perfectly decent ship apart from that one time it went on fire, started to explode, and was scuttled to prevent taking an ammunition ship and the whole of Dover with it.
Although having been to Dover, I'm still unsure whether a giant crater wouldn't have been the better option.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/633/486/327/541/640/original/dccac3b780c02a43.jpg

2023-05-19 19:52:02

Cynics would argue there's no such thing as a glorious failure, and this account invites cynics to go away and boil their heads - JUST LOOK AT THIS THING!
Basically a caged ekranoplan, the Aerotrain was the future of the railways. As long as you remember that the future of the railways in the late 1960s was usually a great big government axe.
Still, a two-seater Pratt & Whitney jet-powered aircushioned hot rod locomotive, eh? Stick that in your Whyte notation and smoke it.
#FailureFriday
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/396/996/242/120/296/original/2334b567b4b52c02.png

2023-05-02 12:38:02

I don't think enough biology teachers explain that, for the rest of his life, whenever he heard a bell ring Ivan Pavlov felt the urge to give a dog a biscuit

2023-03-31 09:43:56

This here, representing about two billion of Norway's finest razor blades in their unprocessed state, is the frigate Helge Ingstad - and the more perceptive of you might notice things are not exactly going to plan.
Mistaking an oil tanker for a shoreside facility, the nature of their mistake hit them at about the same time as the tanker did.
Oops.
#[0]
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/117/226/871/741/144/original/3b15fb03d559c8d3.jpg

2023-03-21 22:55:16

Mathematicians excited by the discovery of a tiling pattern that never repeats itself twice are going to have their mind blown when they see my bathroom