Your LETTERS
Copper bottom insights
Two articles caught my eye in FT October. The first, the item on ships. Imagine if you will, a fully rigged Man o’ War of the 1700s. Hazzard a guess as to how many ropes there were on it.
Answer: One.
This was on the ship’s bell. All the rest are ‘sheets’.
These sheets were covered in tar to prevent them rotting, sailors got this tar on the hands, clothes &c – hence they got the name ‘Jack Tar’.
Every sheet had a specific purpose. If one or more broke loose in a storm they would be flailing about & useless – hence they would say that a drunk was ‘Two sheets to the wind. I had a workmate (long gone) who had been a seaman, he learned to make all the knots used at sea and the art of splicing, he was a font of sea knowledge.
The other item was on the Oxford FHS and the technique for recording gravestones. I recorded MIs [monumental inscriptions] as a oneman effort and developed my own way of doing it – my ‘tools’ didn’t cost a penny. Some
