Probably not of interest to most here.
I have read as many Hornblower novels as I could lay my hands on in my youth, but one crucial maneuver of sailing ships was never mentioned or I missed it.

That is entering harbors and docking without tugboats.

Well here is the answer, excellent seamanship and blooming hard yakka.
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Back in the age of sail, how did big ships maneuver around docks or in narrow rivers, congested harbors, etc., with no engines and no tug boats?

The age of sail was a remarkable period in maritime history, a time when the oceans were highways and tall ships were the carriers of dreams and commerce.

Without the aid of engines or tugboats, sailors relied on several ingenious methods to navigate their ships. One common technique was to use a combination of minimal sail and the ship’s helm to make small forward progress.

This required a deep understanding of how the ship’s sails could be used to catch even the slightest breeze and how the rudder could steer the ship with precision. In conditions where there was little to no wind, or when precision was paramount, crews would resort to warping.

This involved taking the ship’s anchor out a distance, dropping it, and then pulling the ship towards it. It was a laborious process, but it allowed sailors to move their ships with a degree of control that sails alone could not provide.

Another method was kedging, which was similar to warping but involved using a smaller anchor known as a kedge.
Sailors would row the kedge out in a boat, drop it, and then use the ship’s capstan to pull themselves towards it. This technique was especially useful for making fine adjustments to the ship’s position or for moving against the wind.

Sailors also made use of the tides and currents to assist in maneuvering. By timing their movements with the ebb and flow of the tides, they could gain additional momentum or achieve a favorable position without having to rely solely on wind power.

In some cases, sheer manpower was the answer. Crews would take to the ship’s boats and row, towing the larger vessel behind them. It was a grueling task, but in the absence of wind, it was often the only way to move a ship. Onshore, teams of dockworkers or even crowds of volunteers would haul on ropes to drag ships into or out of berths.

The evolution of sails also played a role in maneuverability. The most effective sails for maneuvering a large warship were those at the bow, which underwent significant changes over time to increase their effectiveness. The farther forward such sails were deployed, the greater the leverage they exerted, allowing ships to turn more quickly, particularly through the wind.

Navigating through the age of sail required a blend of brute force, delicate finesse, and an almost symbiotic relationship with the natural elements. It was a time when the mastery of sailing was not just a job but an art form, one that has left us with stories of skill and daring that continue to captivate us to this day.

Vikki Campion: One-eyed view of extremism is missing the bigger picture

?The Senate inquiry into ‘right-wing extremist movements in Australia’ needs to widen its focus, not be used as a grandstanding political platform, writes Vikki Campion.

Focusing the lens on one point is not enough to see the whole picture — you must look behind you. Yet it is obvious the Greens-led Senate inquiry into “right-wing extremist movements in Australia” has no plans to widen its focus, choosing instead to zoom in on this dish that Climate Minister Chris Bowen denounces as “cooked”.

During hearings this week, Greens deputy leader and NSW Senator Mehreen Faruqi pushed for an “anti-racism curriculum” with “truth-telling about discriminatory policies”; complained that far-right ideology was increasingly mainstream, thanks to “dog-whistling”; and pressed academics to agree with her proposal for strong civil and criminal penalties for what she determines to be hate speech.

Senator Faruqi is correct in that we are seeing a rise in extreme behaviour, but those she blames in politics and the media who “normalise or inflame far-right views” are not at fault.

Step back from the photograph, Senator, and look behind you.

Take something as innocuous as a regional mayor’s social media post about NAIDOC Week, where, in the past, any local politician could acknowledge and celebrate Indigenous culture.

For more than a decade, we have been making such innocuous posts, reminders, really, about local NAIDOC events – but this year the responses were brutal, racist and sad. Once, people celebrated together; this year, many shunned it and spewed bile online.

Look behind you.

Australians have been activated and inflamed. The recipe for this is simple.

Force-feed your population an unhealthy dose of race worship and corporate guilt. Change the names of towns or islands to deny their story and rewrite their history to demonise the 1788 immigrants and celebrate the immigrants who came 50,000 years earlier – and from 1988 onwards.

Close historically significant mountains to any Aboriginal, Caucasian, Asian, African or Islamic women, and only open them to certain Aboriginal men.

Kick the locals off Queensland beaches and allow only descendants of certain families to use them. Not all Aboriginals. Not those from the wrong families who aren’t on the right land council.

Change the flight route to Narrm, not Melbourne.

When you land, welcome passengers to the country where they were born.

Before school or any meeting, make them apologise for their ancestors, even if they came here escaping the persecution of one of the worst extremists in history, such as Adolf Hitler, or came here in chains for daring to steal food in a famine.

Make the poor white kid skip the school excursion because her family can’t afford to pay, while the child whose family tenuously ticks the Indigenous box — but who has not lived an Aboriginal life, regional or disadvantaged — travels free.
When they can’t swallow any more guilt, ram pipes down their throats and pump in extreme climate socialism.

Let Blockade Australia cancel hundreds of passenger train trips because it doesn’t like the coal sent out of Newcastle to keep families overseas warm.

Let Animals Australia shut down live-sheep exports, which fed Muslims in Gaza.

Let Extinction Rebellion break into homes and farms and threaten livelihoods and safety.

Let the pro-Palestine Hamas protesters scale the roof of the nation’s parliament.

Let them vandalise our war memorials and justify their actions as “freedom of expression”.

Keep force-feeding.

Make sure they know that if they break the law in the name of environmental socialism, the judiciary will treat them gently.

This rise in what Senator Faruqi calls “right wing” has been prepared by her chefs.

We have been fed a solid diet of extremism from those who think they are heroes for gluing themselves to a road or throwing soup over a painting, and who go to court and are told by the judiciary they are doing it for the right reasons.

We have a level of acceptance for activists stopping coal trains that we do not extend to farmers and Aboriginals fighting to keep their land from being taken away for industrialised intermittent power.

In terms of terrorism we have had in Australia, the Lindt siege had no right-wing ideology attached and neither did the recent stabbing of a bishop at mass.

Even academics representing universities appearing before the Senate inquiry urged senators not to “narrow the focus to only right wing, but to take the full depth of extremism”.

Queensland University of Technology’s Dr John Byron said suppression of discourse often comes from the middle, in the limitation of speech and expression.

He spoke of his mum, an amateur photographer, taking a picture and then looking behind her to see what elements created that moment.

Look behind you.

Herald-Sun

The preponderance of left leaning journalists in our mainstream media has resulted in successful propaganda. So much so that many people are convinced that climate change must be fought, renewable energy can work, and that having all state and federal governments run by the green left is ok.

Having seen what this phenomenon has done to the USA, I fear for Australia’s future. The end run of the Labor-Green-Teal group will be to destroy our ability to earn export dollars, and thereby reduce our standard of living and at the same time brainwash voters that they have our best interests at heart.
I see that Nine’s journalistic crowd appear intent on doing to Nine what they did to Fairfax.

Nine’s cough, churnalists, cough, going on strike for five days. Is anyone really going to notice except for the local barista. Lock them out for another five days, reduce the pay offer to half of what they were prepared to pay. What passes for news these days could be done at home on a laptop. It all seems to be regurgitating talking points from the hive.

A drag queen receives the Olympic flame in Paris.

Paris Olympics cultural tip.

When playing sports trivia in a French pub the answer to “Who won the 1940 Paris marathon?” is apparently not “Panzer Group Guderian”.

DEI is “Speaking Bitterness”

New Discourses

BoN. I find it intriguing that the left are against capital punishment, but enthusiastically support chopping up late term babies in abortion procedures. Perhaps we should rename capital punishment to “retrospective abortion “. The greens would then be able to support it!

I’m all for extra late post term abortions for the left, greens in particular.