On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 14:21:37 -0500, Fredo wrote:

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
JLH wrote:
On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 21:02:46 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

JLH wrote:
On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:03:40 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

An irregular ongoing series of interesting facts related to boating.

Toredo Worm:

The Toredo worm (ship worm)has been the bane of wooden ships,
boats, pilings and retaining walls since man has ventured to the
sea. A type of clam, the Toredo worm has two shells, enclosing only
the front end of the body which function as a tool rather than a
protective covering - they are a boring clam.

Each shell has toothed ridges which shave away bits of wood into
smaller pieces and then those are ingested. Toredo worms have been
known to achieve a length of up to 2 ft long, although the shells
remain only about a foot long.

The British and Spanish navies estimated that a wooden hull in the
Carribean in the age of sail was ten years.

Mariners as early as 500 BC tried to protect their wooden ships by
various combinations of arsenic, sulfur, tars and oils. The British
Navy experimented with a sacrificial covering of wood covering tar,
but it wasn't successful. It wasn't until the invention of copper
hull plating that the Toredo worm became less of a problem.

Sounds like you're reading the Patrick O'Brian series. Great!
Already have.

They sucked.

It's a shame. Did you come to that conclusion after reading all 21? It
took
me about three books to really get into it. It takes about that long to
learn all the terminology, unless one memorizes each term.

I never cared for the Aubrey series. Just not as interesting as the others.



IMHO I have really enjoyed the Patrick O'Brian books! I still have
several to go.

The Golden Ocean was really good!

Fredo

I loved them, once I got into them which took a couple books. You'll hate
finishing the 20th book!

When finished with them, you might try the Alan Lewrie series by Dewey
Lambdin. The books aren't as technical, but they're a fun read.
--
*****Have a Spectacular Day!*****

John H