(SPOILERS) From David re: a certain ship's fate

runsforcelery wrote:I needed a shoal to do the trick and, as I've pointed out, it's not unrealistic for one to be there, nor were the Charisians acting foolishly or recklessly given what they knew. But this is exactly the sort of shoal mariners would name and talk about . . . a lot.

You're right that most of the sailors talking about it would be in local coasting craft, not somewhere the ICN would be likely to hear about it, but jgnfld's right about the way mariners have historically acted.

I'm sure this has made a serious impression on the ICN in the Gulf of Dohlar. While they don't have Harchong's charts, pilots, or buoys to use now, there are the occasional fishermen tapped for information and smuggling. Maybe the ICN can start tapping them for navigational data - if they could trust it.

They may be able to get charts from the "local" seijins, to the extent they exist, and to the extent they can store and effectively reference them, an issue that's been brought up before up-thread.

Not that any realistic arrangement is going to eliminate all possibility of running into something underwater.

In another case of burned hands teaching best, it's likely motivating more work to reconstruct the Royal College's old charts from copies distributed to ships.

JeffEngel wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:I needed a shoal to do the trick and, as I've pointed out, it's not unrealistic for one to be there, nor were the Charisians acting foolishly or recklessly given what they knew. But this is exactly the sort of shoal mariners would name and talk about . . . a lot.

You're right that most of the sailors talking about it would be in local coasting craft, not somewhere the ICN would be likely to hear about it, but jgnfld's right about the way mariners have historically acted.

I'm sure this has made a serious impression on the ICN in the Gulf of Dohlar. While they don't have Harchong's charts, pilots, or buoys to use now, there are the occasional fishermen tapped for information and smuggling. Maybe the ICN can start tapping them for navigational data - if they could trust it.

They may be able to get charts from the "local" seijins, to the extent they exist, and to the extent they can store and effectively reference them, an issue that's been brought up before up-thread.

Not that any realistic arrangement is going to eliminate all possibility of running into something underwater.

In another case of burned hands teaching best, it's likely motivating more work to reconstruct the Royal College's old charts from copies distributed to ships.

I'm in the process of a reread of HFQ and this part is still coming up. But IIRC, Ahbaht already had an old chart, one that was dated. What he needed was an updated chart to have prevented what happened. Given the out of the way location, there may well not have been any updated charts available, at least to the ICN.

Don

Michael Everett wrote:
[snip]

As for Dreadnaught, anyone else looking forwards to the ship re-launching with a CoG Captain thinking "Well, we're pretty damned invincible since the Heretics don't have Screw Galleys" just before the first King Haarahld(sic?) comes steaming over the horizon?

I am not quite sure. I mean yes, of course it is alway nice to see the bad guys jaw drop - but on the other hand they seem to be so outclassed technically (against the King Haaralds) that I am starting to get a root for the underdog reflex. Same feeling like watching the poor arrogant Sollies digging their own graves vis-a-vis the Manties. Somehow the 'triumph' does not really give a lot of satisfaction.

Bruno Behrends wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:
[snip]

As for Dreadnaught, anyone else looking forwards to the ship re-launching with a CoG Captain thinking "Well, we're pretty damned invincible since the Heretics don't have Screw Galleys" just before the first King Haarahld(sic?) comes steaming over the horizon?

I am not quite sure. I mean yes, of course it is alway nice to see the bad guys jaw drop - but on the other hand they seem to be so outclassed technically (against the King Haaralds) that I am starting to get a root for the underdog reflex. Same feeling like watching the poor arrogant Sollies digging their own graves vis-a-vis the Manties. Somehow the 'triumph' does not really give a lot of satisfaction.

I think "triumph" for the RDN and RDA at this point is defined in terms of (1) surviving, until (2) they can get the heck out of this stupid abomination of a war. Or switch sides, from which it's oh so much more wholesome. They're not villains or even (like Sollies) arrogant twerps in need of a comeuppance. They're poor, misguided sorts whose decent loyalties, devotion, and honor have been given to an institution that's lost all right to them. Earl Thirsk's sword, like that of all his countrymen, still deserves a better cause.

runsforcelery wrote:

EdThomas wrote:...[jgnfld: sailors gossip about hazards]...
You're not listening.
The portion of the world's sailors who might be expected to know of this shoal would be those who sail in the area. I'm gonna take a SWAG and say that portion probably amounts to well under a tenth of one percent.(Try writing that in Roman numerals ) It's not a major trading port because of the coastal canals moving trade goods from and to the larger coastal port (Gorath). Foreign traders will go into Gorath which is well to the west of our port/shoal in question. The Dohlaran Navy may be expected to have knowledge of the shoal but I find it most dubious that they would be sharing this information with heretics. Any information they might have shared pre-heresy went up in smoke with the Royal College.
Please can we put this one to bed?

I appreciate the support, Ed. Really! But the truth is, he has a point . . . which is precisely why I waffled back and forth when I was writing the book between naming it and not naming it.

I needed a shoal to do the trick and, as I've pointed out, it's not unrealistic for one to be there, nor were the Charisians acting foolishly or recklessly given what they knew. But this is exactly the sort of shoal mariners would name and talk about . . . a lot.

You're right that most of the sailors talking about it would be in local coasting craft, not somewhere the ICN would be likely to hear about it, but jgnfld's right about the way mariners have historically acted. And aside from the "oh, it was all handwavium" side of the discussion, none of it's really bugged me. It's kind of like that thread about late 19th century navies with Dilandu. I enjoy the discussion --- I just really shouldn't be here (and I wouldn't be without that darned Duckk!) when I'm so far behind on the current Honorverse novel, Honorcon's coming up next weekend in Raleigh, and Megan's finger's healed so both of the twins are back on the soccer field . . . with separate schedules. I had a good day yesterday and got almost 8,200 words written, though, so I treated myself to a break. Now I'm diving back in.

Be well, all.

Of course if the area were known for shifting shoals with no permanent names, the sortie would probably never have been attempted by any competent commander. Or, at least not with such a valuable hull. Sailors were--still are to some degree--a curious mix of timidity and courage when tasked to go to a specific new place at a specific time. ('Timidity' is not the mot juste, but I cannot come up with a better one.) So you do have a lot of writer's considerations here, I agree. You need the sortie launched, but you also need it to fail.

Very likely, in Earth's Age of Sail, there would have been a sailor on board with some local knowledge. Sailors across all nationalities got around all over the world and served on most every nationality's ships and certainly a fleet would have some sailors with some local knowledge. Safehold, developing differently, may not be the same sort of mariner society.

While this old mariner world is largely ending on Earth, I have been amazed talking to some old salts around Newfoundland with their world knowledge of the water. Talked to one very old guy years ago back in the 80s a number of times and he could talk about the world by literally circumnavigating along every coastal country in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. Amazing man. Amazing performance. He knew about lots and lots of shoals! But interestingly he had never had heard of (then) Rhodesia. As a cognitive psychologist, I was near dumbstruck by his memory and its organization.

PeterZ wrote:This is a _named_ feature. That is, it was a stable, known feature in the area. This is an important point, I think.

Why do you think this is sufficient to stop human stupidity?

Ship captains and harbour pilots manage to hit well known features with depressing frequency. Only yesterday, a ship managed to hit the road/rail bridge to Hong Kong airport. Ships have hit bridges from the US to Russia, England to Australia, Sweden to Venezuela, despite them being known, named, precisely mapped, and visible. Although the tale of the US carrier telling a lighthouse to move is an urban legend, ships have hit lighthouses from the US to Australia, even though the lighthouse uses flashing lights to warn people off!

If professionals manage to hit immovable, visible objects, above water level, hitting a sand-bar is hardly surprising.

One thing that struck me about this whole incident was that this is one case where having Snark 'fore-knowledge' has really coming back and bitten the EoC on the rear end and that without the Go4 doing anything clever either!

If they had not known about the screw galleys coming, they would not have tried to raid up the river and then gotten stuck etc etc

Since nobody's suggested this it must be a stupid question.

Why not excavate around the ship to free it?

It's a huge ship and there are only so many shovels in the world, but it does have explosives on board.

Explosives are hazardous, but so are approaching enemies, and the ship was armored.

Expert snuggler wrote:Since nobody's suggested this it must be a stupid question.

Why not excavate around the ship to free it?

It's a huge ship and there are only so many shovels in the world, but it does have explosives on board.

Explosives are hazardous, but so are approaching enemies, and the ship was armored.

Shoveling sand under moving water is an exercise in frustration. Sand nearby will just shift into the hole, quickly. Shoveling up - and away - the entire sand bar for some 2/3rd's the length of the ship will take much too long.

Specialized dredging equipment may do wonders, but squadrons don't routinely sail with that.

They've got explosive shells and bags for prepping gunpowder. I doubt they had much specialized underwater demolition gear for the exercise. (Although it would have been mighty handy for blowing locks on the canals to stop the screw-galleys, too, if they'd been in time.) Underwater explosions near a ship, even an armored one, will be mighty dangerous - heck, if they weren't, the spar torpedo would be a non-threat.

And much of the problem was from having to spend time figuring out the whole problem; trying towing on the tide; then trying more unloading - fairly desperate unloading, at that point; and finally running out of time from the hard-to-predict arrival of the enemy. If they'd known with certainty just what the problem was, how bad it was, that towing would not work, and that they had only that many hours til the enemy showed up, then skipping to explosives or dumping guns immediately may have done the trick. It's just that the time to figure out the problem and work out less desperate Plans A, B, etc. left them out of time to try some extreme Plan X.

Thank you.